Aristotle And Moral Realism

Aristotle And Moral Realism PDF

Author: Robert A Heinaman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-08

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0429970773

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This volume of essays brings together scholars of ancient philosophy and some of today's most distinguished moral philosophers to discuss Aristotle's ethics and the problems of moral realism. One of the central and perennial philosophical problems is the question of whether our ethical assertions and beliefs can be justifiably claimed to rest on some objective foundation. As an upholder of the objectivity of ethics and as one of the most important ethical thinkers in the history of philosophy, Aristotle's writings on these questions are of the greatest interest. Indeed, much of recent moral philosophy has looked directly to Aristotle for inspiration on the problem of moral objectivity. For example, "virtue theorists" were influenced by Aristotle in their proposal that what determines the right thing to do in a particular case is what the virtuous man would do. Similarly, "sensibility theorists" have found support for their view in Aristotle's remarks about the importance of the conditioning of one's desires for the development of virtue and knowledge about the human good.

Aristotle's Moral Realism Reconsidered

Aristotle's Moral Realism Reconsidered PDF

Author: Pavlos Kontos

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 1136649883

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This book elaborates a moral realism of phenomenological inspiration by introducing the idea that moral experience, primordially, constitutes a perceptual grasp of actions and of their solid traces in the world. The main thesis is that, before any reference to values or to criteria about good and evil—that is, before any reference to specific ethical outlooks—one should explain the very materiality of what necessarily constitutes the ‘moral world’. These claims are substantiated by means of a text- centered interpretation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in dialogue with contemporary moral realism. The book concludes with a critique of Heidegger’s, Gadamer’s and Arendt’s approaches to Aristotle’s ethics.

Aristotle And Moral Realism

Aristotle And Moral Realism PDF

Author: Robert A Heinaman

Publisher: Westview Press

Published: 1998-10-06

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9780813391045

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The question of moral realism—whether our ethical beliefs rest on some objective foundation—is one that mattered as much to Aristotle as it does to us today, and his writings on this topic continue to provide inspiration for the contemporary debate. This volume of essays expands the fruitful conversation among scholars of ancient philosophy and contemporary ethical theorists on this question and related issues such as the virtues, justice, and Aristotle's theory of tragedy.The distinguished contributors to this volume enrich and clarify both Aristotle's views and the contemporary debates. This book makes an important contribution to both topics, and it will be essential reading for all philosophers and classicists with an interest in moral philosophy and Greek ethics.

Plato's Moral Realism

Plato's Moral Realism PDF

Author: John M. Rist

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2012-07-31

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0813219809

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Surveying many of Plato's dialogues from the early, middle, and late periods, prominent philosopher John M. Rist shows how Plato gradually came to realize the need for metaphysics to support his ethical position and that a rigorous ethics required a secure metaphysics grounded in universal values.

Moral Reality

Moral Reality PDF

Author: Paul Bloomfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2001-09-27

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9780198031376

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We typically assume that the standard for what is beautiful lies in the eye of the beholder. Yet this is not the case when we consider morality; what we deem morally good is not usually a matter of opinion. Such thoughts push us toward being realists about moral properties, but a cogent theory of moral realism has long been an elusive philosophical goal. Paul Bloomfield here offers a rigorous defense of moral realism, developing an ontology for morality that models the property of being morally good on the property of being physically healthy. The model is assembled systematically; it first presents the metaphysics of healthiness and goodness, then explains our epistemic access to properties such as these, adds a complementary analysis of the semantics and syntax of moral discourse, and finishes with a discussion of how we become motivated to act morally. Bloomfield closely attends to the traditional challenges facing moral realism, and the discussion nimbly ranges from modern medical theory to ancient theories of virtue, and from animal navigation to the nature of normativity. Maintaining a highly readable style throughout, Moral Reality yields one of the most compelling theories of moral realism to date and will appeal to philosophers working on issues in metaphysics or moral philosophy.

Being True to the World

Being True to the World PDF

Author: Jonathan A. Jacobs

Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13:

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This book begins with a critique of moral relativism and proceeds to develop a realist account of practical wisdom. The central claims are that there are objective moral facts and that knowledge of these facts can be action-guiding. The justification for these claims involves explaining the role of imagination in moral judgment and action and also showing how a realist approach to morality enables us to better account for immorality, revealing it to involve ignorance, error or falsification. The book concludes with an analysis of how the character of social relations is crucial to the formation of self-conceptions and the development of moral knowledge and moral imagination.

Rethinking Virtue Ethics

Rethinking Virtue Ethics PDF

Author: Michael Winter

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-09-06

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9400721935

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Rethinking Virtue Ethics offers a model of Aristotelian virtue ethics based on a deductive paradigm. This book argues that, contrary to what many contemporary thinkers are inclined to believe, Aristotelian virtue ethics is consistent with at least some action-guiding moral principles being true unconditionally, and that a justification for general moral principles can be grounded in fundamental concepts within Aristotle’s theory. An analysis of ethical propositions that hold for the most part is proposed that fits well within the deductive paradigm developed. This unique interpretation of virtue ethics has implications for recent discussions of the virtues in social psychology, issues about how fundamental moral principles are known, questions about the justification of inalienable rights, debates about moral particularism and generalism, and discussions of moral realism and anti-realism.

Aristotle on the Scope of Practical Reason

Aristotle on the Scope of Practical Reason PDF

Author: Pavlos Kontos

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-06-10

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1000399095

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This book offers a new account of Aristotle’s practical philosophy. Pavlos Kontos argues that Aristotle does not restrict practical reason to its action-guiding and motivational role; rather, practical reason remains practical in the full sense of the term even when its exercise does not immediately concern the guidance of our present actions. To elucidate why this wider scope of practical reason is important, Kontos brings into the foreground five protagonists that have long been overlooked: (a) spectators or judges who make non-motivational judgments about practical matters that do not interact with their present deliberations and actions; (b) legislators who exercise practical reason to establish constitutions and laws; (c) hopes as an active engagement with moral luck and its impact on our individual lives; (d) prayers as legislators’ way to deal with the moral luck hovering around the birth of constitutions and the prospect of a utopia; and (e) people who are outsiders or marginal cases of the responsibility community because they are totally deprived of practical reason. Building on a wide range of interpretations of Aristotle’s practical philosophy (from the ancient commentators to contemporary analytic and continental philosophers), Kontos offers new insights about Aristotle’s philosophical contribution to the current debates about radical evil, moral luck, hope, utopia, internalism and externalism, and the philosophy of law. Aristotle on the Scope of Practical Reason will appeal to researchers and advanced students interested in Aristotle’s ethics, ancient philosophy, and the history of practical philosophy.

Praise and Blame

Praise and Blame PDF

Author: Daniel N. Robinson

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-04-11

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1400825318

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How should a prize be awarded after a horse race? Should it go to the best rider, the best person, or the one who finishes first? To what extent are bystanders blameworthy when they do nothing to prevent harm? Are there any objective standards of moral responsibility with which to address such perennial questions? In this fluidly written and lively book, Daniel Robinson takes on the prodigious task of setting forth the contours of praise and blame. He does so by mounting an important and provocative new defense of a radical theory of moral realism and offering a critical appraisal of prevailing alternatives such as determinism and behaviorism and of their conceptual shortcomings. The version of moral realism that arises from Robinson's penetrating inquiry--an inquiry steeped in Aristotelian ethics but deeply informed by modern scientific knowledge of human cognition--is independent of cognition and emotion. At the same time, Robinson carefully explores how such human attributes succeed or fail in comprehending real moral properties. Through brilliant analyses of constitutional and moral luck, of biosocial and genetic versions of psychological determinism, and of relativistic-anthropological accounts of variations in moral precepts, he concludes that none of these conceptions accounts either for the nature of moral properties or the basis upon which they could be known. Ultimately, the theory that Robinson develops preserves moral properties even while acknowledging the conditions that undermine the powers of human will.