Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality - Hardcover

Wiggins, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674022149 ISBN 13: 9780674022140

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Almost every thoughtful person wonders at some time why morality says what it says and how, if at all, it speaks to us. David Wiggins surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions--and does so in a way that the thinking reader, increasingly perplexed by the everyday problem of moral philosophy, can follow. His work is thus an introduction to ethics that presupposes nothing more than the reader's willingness to read philosophical proposals closely and literally.

Gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and a twentieth-century assortment of post-utilitarian thinkers, and drawing on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil, and Philippa Foot, Wiggins points to the special role of the sentiments of solidarity and reciprocity that human beings will find within themselves. After examining the part such sentiments play in sustaining our ordinary ideas of agency and responsibility, he searches the political sphere for a neo-Aristotelian account of justice that will cohere with such an account of morality. Finally, Wiggins turns to the standing of morality and the question of the objectivity or reality of ethical demands. As the need arises at various points in the book, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers--Plato, C. S. Peirce, Darwin, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, John Rawls, Montaigne and others--always emphasizing the words of the philosophers under discussion, and giving readers the resources to arrive at their own viewpoint of why and how ethics matters.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Almost everyone has wondered at some time or another why morality requires what it appears to require and how, if at all, it speaks to us. In Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggins surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions–gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians and the post-utilitaritarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws not only on Hume but on other sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil, and present day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers–Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism, altruism and benevolence, Schopenhauer and Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and Mackie on 'moral relativism' among others. After pointing to the special role within morality of the sentiments of solidarity and reciprocity that human beings find within themselves, and the part that these and cognate sentiments play in sustaining our ordinary ideas of agency and responsibility, Wiggins turns to the political sphere and looks for a neo-Aristotelian conception of justice that secures it to some of the same sentiments. Finally, he confronts the question of the objectivity or reality of ethical demands, insisting on the emptiness of any 'metaethics' that ignores the rootedness of morality and the multiplicity of its persuasive resources. The result is an illuminating and original book that makes a compelling introduction to ethics for anyone who looks to philosophy to expand their own thoughts or to husband the whole variety of our ethical ideas, study their provenance, and ascertain their collective reach and aggregated power.

About the Author

David Wiggins retired in 2000 from the Wykeham Chair of Logic at the University of Oxford after 40 years teaching philosophy in the universities of Oxford and London.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0674022149
• ISBN 13: 9780674022140
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 408