Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning - Hardcover

Blackburn, Simon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198247850 ISBN 13: 9780198247852

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1999

Synopsis

Why do we behave as we do? Can we improve? Is our ethics at war with our passions, or is it an upshot of those passions? Distinguished philosopher Simon Blackburn seeks the answers to such questions in this brilliant exploration of the nature of moral emotions and the structures of human motivation. Ruling Passions reveals how ethics can maintain its authority even though it is rooted in the very emotions and motivations that it exists to control.

About this title

About the Author:

Simon Blackburn is the Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He also holds an adjunct Chair at the Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences. From 1969 to 1990 he was Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford, and from 1984 to 1990 he edited the journal Mind. He is the author of the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy.

Review:

`Blackburn elaborates his position through engagement with a variety of writers whose ideas differ from his. He is a capable and energetic critic ... Blackburn's stimulating but at times incautious book makes a lively contribution. People interested in the issues it addresses will read it with
profit.'
Samuel Scheffler, Times Literary Supplement

`The author's arguments ... compel readers to make new distinctions, refine their thinking, and clarify remaining questions. This book is of immense value to scholars and advanced students of religious and philosophical ethics who seek a better grasp of historical and recent debates
concerning the nature of moral agency and the status of moral claims.'
Diana Fritz Cates, Philosophy, vol.25, No.4.

`This book is that rare thing: a work of philosophy beautifully written, able to engage the interest of those outside a narrow sphere of academic specialists, while attending to philosophical problems that most worry those who spend their professional life trying to solve them'
Ethics, July 2001

`rich, wide-ranging, and rewarding'
The Philosophical Review, Vol.109, No.4

`This is a rich, erudite and wonderful book, written with lots of human warmth and a keen eye for philosophical hubris. The discussion is exceptional in the way it brings to life the adventure of ideas.'
Robert Dunn, Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 79

`Blackburn's book should force philosophers to rethink much of what they currently take for granted in debates about practical reasoning'
Michelle Mason, Hume Studies Vol.XXIV No.2

`Ruling Passions gives us our humanity, providing some answers to those sceptics who find Kantian morality devoid of psychological realism.'
Alex Klaushoefer, Times Higher Education Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0198247850
• ISBN 13: 9780198247852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 344