Innes Crellin attacks the “Anglo-Saxon” approach to moral philosophy. Those who seek some meaning in the concept of ‘morality’ find it confused and distorted. What it means seems to vary from one authority to another. In the media and in popular usage, the word has assumed a rhetorical flavour that has disguised any real meaning …
Cheap (under £10) and readable books on ethics. Moral Philosophy by D.D. Raphael. OUP £7.99 A genuine introduction to moral philosophy assuming no previous knowledge and taking you through all the main theories of the subject in straightforward language. Weak on Continental ethics. Utilitarianism: For and Against by J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams. CUP £9.95 …
Peter Lloyd savages the “continental” approach to moral philosophy. “ I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken” Oliver Cromwell, 1650 One of the threats to world peace is from people who share Professor Innes Crellin’s view of the nature of moral values (“The anachronism of morality”, Philosophy …
by Peter Lloyd and Innes Crellin Professor Crellin (Philosophy Now No.15) is right to say “… authenticity, and not moral judgment, … reveals to us the full horror of an Auschwitz … Moral philosophy or religious dogma is no substitute for this.” Nevertheless… (a) ‘Authenticity’ is not enough. It cannot handle moral dilemmas because it …
Ethics (or moral philosophy) is crucially important because it is devoted to answering questions like these: “What is best?”“What is the good life?”“How should I live?”“How should I behave towards other people?”“What is the purpose of life?” These are questions about what makes things valuable; they were the questions which drew me to philosophy in …
Anja Steinbauer says Don’t Trust the Ethicists (too much). Ethical issues are a messy business. Trying to get a firm grip on them is like holding a handful of sand and see it trickle through your fingers. Many philosophers love ethics. Equipped with their professional buckets and spades – virtues, maxims, systems and values – …
Rick’s handy tear-out’n’keep guide to the main positions in moral philosophy. For two millennia the West has been dominated by Christianity, and the ethical systems associated with it have shaped (and been shaped by?) our commonsense ideas of what is right and wrong. Christian ethics derives from the ideas of the Old Testament and of …
Warwick Fox on an approach to the environment which is also a way of living. Deep ecology is one of about nine major approaches to our relationship with the world around us that have been mapped out by environmental philosophers in recent years. I’m not going to discuss all these approaches here, but it might …
Vance Morgan on how to build a moral environment of your very own. Being a living organism is hard work. Any organism, from the simplest to the most complex, must navigate a physical environment of dizzying intricacy in order to survive, an environment whose elements gain and lose importance depending on the organism. A crab, …
Bob Harrison talks about Moral Realists and the Boo/Hurrah party, and explains what David Hume overlooked. “What that fellow did was morally unacceptable. It was wrong. In fact, it was disgusting; downright revolting.” You could say all of these things about the same act, and they could all refer, quite properly, to the same thing. …