Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
David E. Alexander is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Huntington University, Indiana, USA.David Alexander has written a clear, thoughtful, and timely defense of conclusions well worth pressing in the current philosophical climate. His discussion of the thesis that 'good' is attributive is one of the best available. And his development of this thesis with an eye on belief in God is just excellent. His book should be read by anyone with a serious interest in moral philosophy and/or philosophy of religion.
- Brian Davies. Professor of Philosophy, Fordham University, USA,
Most contemporary versions of moral realism are beset with difficulties. Many of these difficulties arise because of a faulty conception of the nature of goodness. Goodness, God, and Evil lays out and defends a new version of moral realism that re-conceives the nature of goodness.
Alexander argues that the adjective 'good' is best thought of as an attributive adjective and not as a predicative one. In other words, the adjective 'good' logically cannot be detached from the noun (or noun phrase) that it modifies. It is further argued that this conception of the function of the adjective implies that recent attempts to provide necessary a posteriori identities between goodness and something else must fail.
The convertibility of being and goodness, the privation theory of evil, a denial of the fact-value distinction, human nature as the ground of human morality and even a novel argument for the existence of God are some of the implications of the account of goodness that Alexander offers.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One: Contemporary Moral Realism: Problems with a Common Assumption
Chapter Two: Geach's Claim: Explication and Defense
Chapter Three: Some Metaethical Implications of the Attributive Account of Good
Chapter Four: The Function of 'Good' and Good Functions
Chapter Five: From the Attributive Account to God
Bibliography
Formerly Continuum Studies in Philosophy of Religion; for titles published before September 2012 click here.
Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy of Religion presents scholarly monographs offering cutting-edge research and debate to students and scholars in philosophy of religion. The series engages with the central questions and issues within the field, including the problem of evil, the cosmological, teleological, moral, and ontological arguments for the existence of God, divine foreknowledge, and the coherence of theism. It also incorporates volumes on the following metaphysical issues as and when they directly impact on the philosophy of religion: the existence and nature of the soul, the existence and nature of free will, natural law, the meaning of life, and science and religion.