Real ethics : reconsidering the foundations of morality / John M. Rist.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rist, John M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethics.

Moral realism.

Ethics--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 295 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

John Rist surveys the history of ethics from Plato to the present and offers a vigorous defence of an ethical theory based on a revised version of Platonic realism. In a wide-ranging discussion he examines well-known alternatives to Platonism, in particular Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume and Kant as well as contemporary 'practical reasoners', and argues that most post-Enlightenment theories of morality (as well as Nietzschean subversions of such theories) depend on an abandoned Christian metaphysic and are unintelligible without such grounding. He also argues that contemporary choice-based theories, whether they take a strictly ethical or more obviously political form, are ultimately arbitrary in nature. His lively and accessible 2001 study is informed by a powerful sense of philosophical history, and will be of interest to both students and scholars of ethics.

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Ethical crises old and new; CHAPTER 1 Moral nihilism: Socrates vs. Thrasymachus; CHAPTER 2 Morals and metaphysics; CHAPTER 3 The soul and the self; CHAPTER 4 Division and its remedies; CHAPTER 5 Rules and applications; CHAPTER 6 The past, present and future of practical reasoning; CHAPTER 7 Autonomy and choice; CHAPTER 8 Ethics and ideology; CHAPTER 9 God and ethics; Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 285-291) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-12488-3

1-280-41936-9

0-511-17490-X

0-511-04481-X

0-511-15500-X

0-511-32857-5

0-511-61299-0

0-511-04204-3

OCLC:

437063392