Natural Goodness - Hardcover

Foot, Philippa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198235089 ISBN 13: 9780198235088

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Philippa Foot has for many years been one of the most distinctive and influential thinkers in moral philosophy. Long dissatisfied with the moral theories of her contemporaries, she has gradually evolved a theory of her own that is radically opposed not only to emotivism and prescriptivism but also to the whole subjectivist, anti-naturalist movement deriving from David Hume. Dissatisfied with both Kantian and utilitarian ethics, she claims to have isolated a special form of evaluation that predicates goodness and defect only to living things considered as such; she finds this form of evaluation in moral judgements. Her vivid discussion covers topics such as practical rationality, erring conscience, and the relation between virtue and happiness, ending with a critique of Nietzsche's immoralism. This long-awaited book exposes a highly original approach to moral philosophy and represents a fundamental break from the assumptions of recent debates. Foot challenges many prominent philosophical arguments and attitudes; but hers is a work full of life and feeling, written for anyone intrigued by the deepest questions about goodness and human.

About this title

About the Author:

Philippa Foot is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, Honourary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Review:

"Natural Goodness is an exciting and provoking book, more interesting than most books in moral philosophy....What she has given us both in this book and elsewhere deserves nothing but intellectual and moral gratitude."-- Alasdair MacIntyre, Philosophical Quarterly

"One of the most fascinating ideas in ancient philosophy--that there is a close relation between human happiness and virtue--has been largely neglected in modern philosophy. In this highly significant book, Philippa Foot revives that idea, rooting it in an understanding of human goodness as depending on the nature of our species. In more than one sense, it is a work of great integrity. Beautifully and economically written, and powerfully argued, it will become a classic of modern moral philosophy."--Roger Crisp

"A lovely, profound, and remarkably agile work"--Virginia Quarterly Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0198235089
• ISBN 13: 9780198235088
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 136