Being and freedom : on late modern ethics in Europe / John Skorupski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Skorupski, John, 1946- author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethics--Europe, Western--History--19th century.

Ethics.

Ethics--Europe, Western--History--18th century.

Liberty--Philosophy.

Liberty.

Europe, Western--Intellectual life--18th century.

Europe, Western.

Europe, Western--Intellectual life--19th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource xii, 536 pages).

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Being & freedom

On late modern ethics in Europe

Place of Publication:

Oxford, England ; New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

'Being and Freedom' is a panoramic account of ethics in Europe from the French Revolution to the end of the nineteenth century. John Skorupski explores the interaction of philosophical ideas with social influences across Europe during this period, including Kantian ethics, Hegel's holism, and the British utilitarian tradition.

Contents:

Cover

Being and Freedom: On Late Modern Ethics in Europe

Copyright

Contents

Preface

Introduction

I: Freedom and the French Revolution

1. Narrative

1.1 1789-1790: From the Summoning of the Estates General to Constitutional Monarchy

1.2 1790-1792: From Constitutional Monarchy to the First Republic

1.3 1793-1799: From the Execution of the King to the 18th Brumaire

2. The Thought and Feeling of the Revolutionary Elites

2.1 Revolutionary Symbolism

2.2 Violence

2.3 The Old Ethical Order

2.4 Impartial Individualism: Rights and Well-Being

2.5 Radical-Democracy and Rousseau

2.6 Did Radical-Democracy Lead to Terror?

2.7 The Will of the People: Rhetoric and Practice

2.8 Sieyès and the Normative Force of Collective Assent

2.9 Cosmopolitanism

3. Aftermath

3.1 What Went Wrong?

3.2 On the Legitimacy of the Napoleonic State

3.3 Constant on the Liberty of the Moderns

3.4 Tocqueville on Democracy, Guizot on Representative Government

3.5 de Maistre Against Reason: Anti-Rationalism Versus Irrationalism

II: Freedom in Kant's Revolution

1. Knowledge

1.1 Kant's Revolution

1.2 Forms of Sensibility and Categories of Thought

1.3 The Knowing and Deciding Self

1.4 The Scope of Understanding and the Limits of Reason

1.5 The Antinomy of Pure Reason

1.6 Religion: Denying Knowledge to Make Room for Faith

2. Freedom

2.1 The Causality of Freedom: Autonomy

2.2 Spontaneity and Receptivity

2.3 Empirical and Intelligible

2.4 Negative and Positive Freedom: Autonomy

2.5 Free Thought and the Epistemology of Reason

3. Morality and Religion

3.1 Morality and Practical Reason

3.2 The Categorical Imperative: (i) Universal Law

3.3 The Categorical Imperative: (ii) Rational Nature as an End in Itself.

3.4 The Categorical Imperative: (iii) Autonomy and the Kingdom of Ends: Self-Legislation

3.5 Impartiality

3.6 The Honour Code of Humanity

3.7 The Postulates of Freedom, Immortality, and God

3.8 Christianity as a Moral Faith

4. Politics

4.1 Sovereignty, Representation, and Democracy

4.2 Justice and Right

4.3 A Foundation for Rights?

4.4 Kant and the French Revolution

5. Kant: Concluding Reflection

5.1 Idealism and Critical Philosophy

5.2 Two Heroic Illusions about Freedom

5.3 The Epistemology of Morality

5.4 Kantian Ethics without the Illusions

5.5 Beyond the Enlightenment

III: Freedom and Faith Between Kant and Hegel

1. Faith and Reason: Hamann, Jacobi, Hume, and Kant

2. Schiller

2.1 The Ideal of Wholeness: Schiller and Kant on Freedom

2.2 Wholeness as a Late Modern Ideal

3. Fichte

3.1 The Metaphysics of the Self

3.2 The Principle of Morality

3.3 Self-Consciousness, Mutual Recognition, and Rights

3.4 The Constitution of the State

3.5 Mysticism, Religion, and Philosophy

3.6 Fichte and Parmenides

4. Review

4.1 Metaphysics, Religion, and Ethics

4.2 Self-Realization and At-Oneness

4.3 Interpreting Fichte

IV: Freedom and Spirit: Hegel

1. Early Years: 1788-1806

1.1 The Fate of Christianity

1.2 Enlightenment and Faith

1.3 Absolute Freedom and Terror

2. Identity-in-Difference

2.1 Holism and Individualism

2.2 Belonging to a Whole

2.3 Freedom as Identity-in-Difference

2.4 Recognition and Authority

3. Absolute Idealism

3.1 Absolute Freedom

3.2 From Transcendental to Absolute

3.3 Teleology and Speculative Logic

3.4 Mysticism and Logic

4. The Philosophy of Right (I): Reason, Will, and the Emergence of Autonomy

4.1 Immanence

4.2 The Structure of Right: Will, Self, and the Normative Order

4.3 Abstract Right.

4.4 Punishment: The Transition to Moralität

4.5 Moralität: The Right of the Subjective Will

4.6 Hegel's Criticism of Kant's Ethics: The Transition to Sittlichkeit

5. The Philosophy of Right (II): Ethical Life

5.1 Ethical Substance

5.2 The Family

5.3 Civil Society

5.4 Constitutionalism and Democracy

5.5 The State as Wille Actualized

5.6 The State as Ultimate End Versus the World Spirit

V: Retrospect: France and Germany

1. The French Revolution: Liberty and Democracy

2. German Idealism

2.1 Reason, Will, and Freedom

2.2 Being as Spirit

2.3 Idealism and Ethics

3. Hegelian Ethics

3.1 The Dependence of Moralität on Ethical Life

3.2 Ethical Home

3.3 The Dependence of Ethical Life on a Spiritual Conception of the World

VI: Ethics in the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment

1. Enlightenment Naturalism and Kant

2. Philosophy in Scotland (I): David Hume and Thomas Reid

2.1 Scepticism and Science: David Hume

2.2 Common Sense: Thomas Reid

2.3 Common Sense and the Ontology of Reason

3. Philosophy in Scotland (II): Adam Smith

3.1 Smith's Sentimentalism

3.2 The Disinterested Spectator

3.3 Morality

3.4 Evaluative and Practical Reasons

3.5 Propriety and Utility

4. Philosophy in England: Jeremy Bentham

4.1 The Rise of Utilitarianism

4.2 Bentham and Philosophical Radicalism

4.3 Bentham's Hedonism

4.4 The Principle of Utility

4.5 Indirect Utilitarianism and Common Sense: First Thoughts

4.6 The Retreat of Natural Rights

4.7 Bentham, Grotius, and Natural Rights

5. Impartiality: Kant, Smith, and Bentham on the Foundations of Ethics

6. Political Economy

VII: Freedom and Well-Being: John Stuart Mill

1. Forging a Synthesis

1.1 Early Years

1.2 Bentham and Coleridge

1.3 The Idealism of Freedom: Mill and Schiller

2. Naturalism.

2.1 'Natural-Scientific' Versus 'Hermeneutic'

2.2 Individualism and Holism in the Moral Sciences: Mill Versus Comte

2.3 Naturalism in Epistemology

2.4 Reflective Equilibrium

2.5 Moral Freedom

2.6 Religion

2.7 External Substance, Consciousness, and Self

3. 'The little volume entitled Utilitarianism'

3.1 The Good for Human Beings

3.2 The Hierarchy of Goods

3.3 Ethical Idealism, Moral Egalitarianism

3.4 Two Routes to Utilitarianism

3.5 Utilitarianism as a Theory of Practical Reason

3.6 Comte, the Morality-Intoxicated Man

3.7 Morality, Categoricity, and Conscience

3.8 Rights

3.9 The Triplism of Practical Reason

4. The Culture of Freedom

4.1 The Structure of Freedom: Mill and Hegel

4.2 Inner Freedom

4.3 Free Thought

4.4 The Principles of Liberty

4.5 Democracy

4.6 Cooperation

4.7 The Subjection of Women: Mill, Fichte, Hegel

5. Note: Progressivism, Empire, and Race

VIII: Green and Sidgwick: Idealism and Utilitarianism at the End of the Century

1. Thomas Hill Green

1.1 The Moment of German Idealism in Britain

1.2 Green Against Naturalism

1.3 Self-Realization and the Common Good

1.4 The Common Good

1.5 Hegel and Green: Idealism, Individualism, Liberalism

1.6 Rights, Liberty, and the Common Good

2. Henry Sidgwick

2.1 Sidgwick on 'Intuition'

2.2 The Structure of the Methods of Ethics: Utilitarianism and Common Sense

2.3 Esoteric Ethics

2.4 The Axioms of Practical Reason

2.5 The Dualism of Practical Reason in a Meaningless World

3. Sentiment, Will, and Reason

3.1 Impartiality

3.2 Two Sources of Practical Reasons: Evaluative Reasons and the Good

3.3 A Third Source: Rights

IX: Concluding Reflection

1. Impartial Individualism, Complex Individualism, and Holism

2. Kant on Autonomy

3. The Philosophical Crisis of Religion.

4. Fichte and Hegel on Identity, Recognition, and Rights

5. The Liberal Conception of Inner Freedom: Autonomy and Self-Realization

6. Liberty and Democracy

7. Modernism

8. Democracy and Epistemology

9. The Syntheses of Hegel and Mill

10. Foundations, Frameworks, and Meanings

Appendix: The Two Revolutions

Suggestions for Further Reading

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

This edition also issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [519]-528) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-265162-5

0-19-178534-2

0-19-102614-X

OCLC:

1244622066