Synopses & Reviews
Simon Blackburn puts forward a compelling and original philosophy of human motivation and morality. 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? Blackburn seeks the answers to such questions in an exploration of the nature of moral emotions and the structures of human motivation. He develops a naturalistic ethics, which integrates our understanding of ethics with the rest of our understanding of the world we live in. His theory does not debunk the ethical by reducing it to the non-ethical, and it banishes the spectres of scepticism and relativism that have haunted recent moral philosophy. 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.
Review
"Blackburn's stimulating...book makes a lively contribution. People interested in the issues it addresses will read it with profit."--Times Literary Supplement
"Ruling Passions gives us our humanity, providing some answers to those sceptics who find Kantian morality devoid of psychological realism."--Times Higher Educational Supplement
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 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.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Organizing Practice: The Elements of Ethics
2. Things That Concern Us
3. The Ethical Proposition: What It Is Not
4. Naturalizing Norms
5. Looking Out For Yourself
6. Game Theory and Rational Actors
7. The Good, the Right, and the Common Point of View
8. Self-Control, Reason, and Freedom
9. Relativism, Subjectivism, Knowledge
Appendix
Bibliography
Index