How should a prize be awarded after a horse race? Should it go to the
best rider, the best person, or the one who finishes first? To what
extent are bystanders blameworthy when they do nothing to prevent
harm? Are there any objective standards of moral responsibility with
which to address such perennial questions? In this fluidly written and
lively book, Daniel Robinson takes on the prodigious task of setting
forth the contours of praise and blame. He does so by mounting an
important and provocative new defense of a radical theory of moral
realism and offering a critical appraisal of prevailing alternatives
such as determinism and behaviorism and of their conceptual
shortcomings. The version of moral realism that arises from Robinson's
penetrating inquiry--an inquiry steeped in Aristotelian ethics but
deeply informed by modern scientific knowledge of human cognition--is
independent of cognition and emotion. At the same time, Robinson
carefully explores how such human attributes succeed or fail in
comprehending real moral properties. Through brilliant analyses of
constitutional and moral luck, of biosocial and genetic versions of
psychological determinism, and of relativistic-anthropological
accounts of variations in moral precepts, he concludes that none of
these conceptions accounts either for the nature of moral properties
or the basis upon which they could be known. Ultimately, the theory
that Robinson develops preserves moral properties even while
acknowledging the conditions that undermine the powers of human will.
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Moral Realism and Its Applications
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400825318
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Antall sider
240
Forfatter