Moral Tradition And Individuality

Author : John Kekes
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691223025
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Moral Tradition and Individuality written by John Kekes and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this study, John Kekes develops the view that good lives depend on maintaining a balance between one's moral tradition and individuality. Our moral tradition provides the forms of good lives and the permissible ways of trying to achieve them. But to do so, the author argues, we must grow in self-knowledge and self-control to make our characters suitable for realizing our aspirations. In addressing general readers as well as scholars, Kekes makes these philosophical views concrete by drawing on a rich variety of literary sources, including, among others, the works of Sophocles, Henry James, Tolstoy, and Edith Wharton. The first half of the work concentrates on social morality, establishing the conditions all good lives must meet. The second discusses personal morality, the sphere of individuality. Its development enables us to discover what is important to us and how we can fit our personal aspirations into the forms of life our moral tradition provides. Kekes's argument derives its inspiration from Aristotle's objectivism, Hume's emphasis on custom and feeling, and Mill's concentration on individuals and their experiments in living. This book is a nontechnical yet closely reasoned attempt to provide a contemporary answer to the age-old question of how to live well.

Author : John Kekes
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501721860
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Moral Wisdom and Good Lives written by John Kekes and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this profound and yet accessible book, John Kekes discusses moral wisdom: a virtue essential to living a morally good and personally satisfying life. He advances a broad, nontechnical argument that considers the adversities inherent in the human condition and assists in the achievement of good lives. The possession of moral wisdom, Kekes asserts, is a matter of degree: more of it makes lives better, less makes them worse. Exactly what is moral wisdom, however, and how should it be sought? Ancient Greek and medieval Christian philosophers were centrally concerned with it. By contrast, modern Western sensibility doubts the existence of a moral order in reality; and because we doubt it, and have developed no alternatives, we have grown dubious about the traditional idea of wisdom. Kekes returns to the classical Greek sources of Western philosophy to argue for the contemporary significance of moral wisdom. He develops a proposal that is eudaimonistic—secular, anthropocentric, pluralistic, individualistic, and agonistic. He understands moral wisdom as focusing on the human effort to create many different forms of good lives. Although the approach is Aristotelian, the author concentrates on formulating and defending a contemporary moral ideal. The importance of this ideal, he shows, lies in increasing our ability to cope with life's adversities by improving our judgment. In chapters on moral imagination, self-knowledge, and moral depth, Kekes calls attention to aspects of our inner life that have been neglected because of our cultural inattention to moral wisdom. He discusses these inner processes through the tragedies of Sophocles, which can inspire us with their enduring moral significance and help us to understand the importance of moral wisdom to living a good life.

Author : Paul Fairfield
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 9780802047366
Total Pages : 302 pages
Book Rating : 4.6X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Moral Selfhood in the Liberal Tradition written by Paul Fairfield and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with a wide-ranging discussion of liberal philosophers, Fairfield proposes that liberalism requires a complete reconception of moral selfhood, one that accommodates elements of the contemporary critiques without abandoning liberal individualism.

Author : Charles E. Curran
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781589014275
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Catholic Moral Tradition Today written by Charles E. Curran and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 1999-04-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Catholic tradition has always tried to explain its theology in a coherent and systematic way, but the great changes and tensions existing within Catholic moral theology today have made it difficult to develop systematic approaches to what was once called fundamental moral theology. Now a leading scholar active in this field for forty years offers a synthesis of Catholic moral theology set in the context of the broader Catholic tradition and the significant developments that have occurred since the Second Vatican Council. Charles E. Curran’s succinct, coherent account of his wide-ranging work in Catholic moral theology points out agreements, disagreements, and changes in significant aspects of the Catholic moral tradition. His systematic approach explores major topics in a logical development: the ecclesiological foundation and stance of moral theology; the person as moral subject and agent; virtues, principles and norms; conscience and decision making; and the role of the church as a teacher of morality. Curran’s work condenses and organizes a large amount of material to show that the Catholic theological tradition is in dialogue with contemporary life and thought while remaining conscious of its rich history. Of great interest to theologians for its broad synthetic scope, this book is also a thorough introduction to the Catholic moral tradition for students and interested readers, including non-Catholics.

Author : Andrew Michael Flescher
Publisher : Georgetown University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781589013414
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.17/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality written by Andrew Michael Flescher and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2003-11-25 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us are content to see ourselves as ordinary people—unique in ways, talented in others, but still among the ranks of ordinary mortals. Andrew Flescher probes our contented state by asking important questions: How should "ordinary" people respond when others need our help, whether the situation is a crisis, or something less? Do we have a responsibility, an obligation, to go that extra mile, to act above and beyond the call of duty? Or should we leave the braver responses to those who are somehow different than we are: better somehow, "heroes," or "saints?" Traditional approaches to ethics have suggested there is a sharp distinction between ordinary people and those called heroes and saints; between duties and acts of supererogation (going beyond the expected). Flescher seeks to undo these standard dichotomies by looking at the lives and actions of certain historical figures—Holocaust rescuers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, among others—who appear to be extraordinary but were, in fact, ordinary people. Heroes, Saints, and Ordinary Morality shifts the way we regard ourselves in relationship to those we admire from afar—it asks us not only to admire, but to emulate as well—further, it challenges us to actively seek the acquisition of virtue as seen in the lives of heroes and saints, to learn from them, a dynamic aspect of ethical behavior that goes beyond the mere avoidance of wrongdoing. Andrew Flescher sets a stage where we need to think and act, calling us to lead lives of self-examination—even if that should sometimes provoke discomfort. He asks that we strive to emulate those we admire and therefore allow ourselves to grow morally, and spiritually. It is then that the individual develops a deeper altruistic sense of self—a state that allows us to respond as the heroes of our own lives, and therefore in the lives of others, when times and circumstance demand that of us.

Author : Owen Flanagan
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262560740
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Identity, Character, and Morality written by Owen Flanagan and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1993-08-26 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many philosophers believe that normative ethics is in principle independent of psychology. By contrast, the authors of these essays explore the interconnections between psychology and moral theory. They investigate the psychological constraints on realizable ethical ideals and articulate the psychological assumptions behind traditional ethics. They also examine the ways in which the basic architecture of the mind, core emotions, patterns of individual development, social psychology, and the limits on human capacities for rational deliberation affect morality.

Author : Antonio S. Cua
Publisher : CUA Press
ISBN 13 : 0813230543
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.42/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Moral Vision and Tradition written by Antonio S. Cua and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2018-03-02 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers a comprehensive philosophical study of Confucian ethics-its basic insights and its relevance to contemporary Western moral philosophy. Distinguished writer and philosopher A. S. Cua presents fourteen essays which deal with various probl

Author : Alex Zakaras
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195384687
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Individuality and Mass Democracy written by Alex Zakaras and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2009 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alex Zakaras argues that we must develop an ideal of citizenship suitable for mass society. To do so, he turns to a pair of 19th-century philosophers - John Stuart Mill and Ralph Waldo Emerson - who were among the first to confront the specific challenge of making mass democracy work.

Author : Robert M. Ellis
Publisher : Lulu.com
ISBN 13 : 144751582X
Total Pages : 489 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Theory of Moral Objectivity written by Robert M. Ellis and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was originally written as an accredited Ph.D. thesis - but one that broke all the usual rules. Rather than focusing on a small area like most theses, this is a inter-disciplinary philosophical treatise that attempts to establish a new approach to the whole question of objectivity, especially in ethics. Inspired by the Buddhist Middle Way, but argued in Western terms from first premises, this book challenges widespread assumptions found in both analytic and continental traditions of philosophy. It seeks to establish a Middle Way between absolutism and relativism, using evidence from philosophy, psychology, religion and history. The author, Robert M. Ellis, is a philosopher and teacher, and was also a Buddhist practitioner for many years. However, he has now withdrawn from any commitment to the Buddhist tradition to concentrate on developing a universal Middle Way philosophy, promoted on his website, www.moralobjectivity.net.

Author : Steve Feldman
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 135132506X
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Memory as a Moral Decision written by Steve Feldman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of organizational culture has become a matter of central importance with the great increase in the size of organizations in the twentieth century and the need for managers to run them. Like morale in the military, organizational culture is the great invisible force that decides the difference between success and failure and serves as the key to organizational change, productivity, effectiveness, control, innovation, and communication. Memory as a Moral Decision, provides a historical review of the literature on organizational culture. Its goal is to investigate the kind of world conceptualized by those who have described organizations and the kind of moral world they have in fact constructed, through its ideals and images, for the men and women who work in organizations.Feldman builds his analysis around a historically grounded concept of moral tradition. He demonstrates a central insight: when those who have written on organizational culture have addressed issues of ethics, they have ignored the past as a foundation to stabilize and maintain moral commitments. Instead, they have fluctuated between attempts to base ethics on executive rationality and attempts to escape the suffocating logic of rationalism. After an opening chapter defining the concept of moral tradition, Feldman focuses on early works on organizational management by Chester Barnard and Melville Dalton. These define the tension between ethical rationalism and ethical relativism. He then turns to contemporary frameworks, analyzing critical organizational theory and the "new institutionalism." In the final chapters, Feldman considers ethical relativism in contemporary thinking, including postmodern organization theory, the exaggerated drive for diversity, and such concepts as power/knowledge and deconstructionism.Memory as a Moral Decision is unique in its understanding of organizational culture as it relates to past, present, and future systems. Its interdisciplinary approach uses the insights of sociology, psychology, and culture studies to create an invaluable framework for the study of ethics in organizations.