Based on an unfinished manuscript by the late philosopher Dallas
Willard, this book makes the case that the 20th century saw a massive
shift in Western beliefs and attitudes concerning the possibility of
moral knowledge, such that knowledge of the moral life and of its
conduct is no longer routinely available from the social institutions
long thought to be responsible for it. In this sense, moral
knowledge—as a publicly available resource for living—has
disappeared. Via a detailed survey of main developments in ethical
theory from the late 19th through the late 20th centuries, Willard
explains philosophy’s role in this shift. In pointing out the
shortcomings of these developments, he shows that the shift was not
the result of rational argument or discovery, but largely of arational
social forces—in other words, there was no good reason for moral
knowledge to have disappeared. The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge is
a unique contribution to the literature on the history of ethics and
social morality. Its review of historical work on moral knowledge
covers a wide range of thinkers including T.H Green, G.E Moore,
Charles L. Stevenson, John Rawls, and Alasdair MacIntyre. But, most
importantly, it concludes with a novel proposal for how we might
reclaim moral knowledge that is inspired by the phenomenological
approach of Knud Logstrup and Emmanuel Levinas. Edited and eventually
completed by three of Willard’s former graduate students, this book
marks the culmination of Willard’s project to find a secure basis in
knowledge for the moral life.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780429958878
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter