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Ethical questions are often associated with practical dilemmas: questions in morality, in other words. This volume, by contrast, asks questions about morality: what it is, and to what it owes its precarious authority over us. The focus on metaethics is sustained throughout, via a wide range of philosophical perspectives. Distinguished luminaries who include R. M. Hare and Bernard Williams address keenly debated issues such as what constitutes morality in politics; the relationship between education and ethical standards; and whether or not morality can indeed be defined at all. As Nikhil Krishnan writes in his elegant Foreword, 'The plain-speaking, essayistic grace of these essays, speaks nevertheless of the possibility of moral philosophy, written with an eye to a listener, very possibly not a professional philosopher, who has the right to say, ''This is all very well, your neat little theory, but it doesn't ring true. Things are more complicated than that.'''
Foreword Nikhil Krishnan
Preface:
1. Objective prescriptions R. M. Hare
2. Integrity and self-Identity Stewart R. Sutherland
3. The better part Stephen R. L. Clark
4. Invincible knowledge Renford Bambrough
5. Emmanuel levinas: responsibility and election Catherine Chalier
6. Ethical absolutism and education Peter Gardner
7. Morals and politics Anthony Quinton
8. Duties and virtues Onora O'neill
9. The definition of morality John Skorupski
10. Ethics, fantasy and self-transformation Jean Grimshaw
11. How we do ethics now James Griffin
12. Justice without constitutive Luck S. L. Hurley
13. Who needs ethical knowledge? Bernard Williams
14. Institutional ethics Marcus G. Singer
References.
Description
Ethical questions are often associated with practical dilemmas: questions in morality, in other words. This volume, by contrast, asks questions about morality: what it is, and to what it owes its precarious authority over us. The focus on metaethics is sustained throughout, via a wide range of philosophical perspectives. Distinguished luminaries who include R. M. Hare and Bernard Williams address keenly debated issues such as what constitutes morality in politics; the relationship between education and ethical standards; and whether or not morality can indeed be defined at all. As Nikhil Krishnan writes in his elegant Foreword, 'The plain-speaking, essayistic grace of these essays, speaks nevertheless of the possibility of moral philosophy, written with an eye to a listener, very possibly not a professional philosopher, who has the right to say, ''This is all very well, your neat little theory, but it doesn't ring true. Things are more complicated than that.'''
