Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Kitcher, Philip (1947-....)
Titre(s) : The ethical project [Texte imprimé] / Philip Kitcher
Publication : Cambridge (Mass.) : Harvard university press, 2011
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (IX-422 p.) ; 24 cm
Comprend : Introduction : The shape of things to come ; Methodological preliminaries ; An analytical
history : The springs of sympathy : Psychological altruism: basics ; The varieties
of altruistic reactions ; Some dimensions of altruism ; Maternal concern ; Broader
forms of altruism? ; Possibilities of evolutionary explanation ; The coalition game
; Normative guidance : The limits of altruism ; Following orders ; Punishment ; Conscience
; Social embedding ; Experiments of living : From there to here ; Cultural competition
; The unseen enforcer ; Some dots to be connected ; Division of labor ; Roles, rules,
and institutions ; Altruism expanded ; One thing after another? : Mere change? ;
Three ancient examples ; Second-sex citizens ; Repudiating chattel slavery ; The withering
of vice ; The divine commander ; II. A metaethical perspective : Troubles with truth
: Taking stock ; Prima facie problems ; Truth, realism and constructivism ; The sources
of troubles ; Possibilities of progress : The centrality of ethical progress ; Generalizations
from history ; Problems, functions and progress ; Modes of refinement ; Functional
generation ; Local and global progress ; Ethical truth revisited ; Residual concerns
; Naturalistic fallacies? : Hume's challenge ; Authority undermined? ; Troublesome
characters ; Settling disputes ; III. A normative stance : Progress, equality, and
the good : Two visions of normative ethics ; Dynamic consequentialism ; Failures and
successes ; From the local community to the human population ; Equality and the good
life ; Population size ; Aspects of the good life ; Method in ethics : Varieties
of ethical change ; Method and the good ; Mutual engagement ; Ethical debate ; Dissent
and the limits of tolerance ; The challenger revisited ; Renewsing the project :
Philosophical midwifery ; Scarce resources ; Habits and their limits ; Conflicting
roles ; Ethically insulated spheres ; Maintaining equality ; The challenges of technology
; Conclusion : Summing up.
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references and index
Principles of right and wrong guide the lives of almost all human beings, but we often
see them as external to ourselves, outside our own control. In a revolutionary approach
to the problems of moral philosophy, Philip Kitcher makes a provocative proposal:
Instead of conceiving ethical commands as divine revelations or as the discoveries
of brilliant thinkers, we should see our ethical practices as evolving over tens of
thousands of years, as members of our species have worked out how to live together
and prosper. Elaborating this radical new vision, Kitcher shows how the limited altruistic
tendencies of our ancestors enabled a fragile social life, how our forebears learned
to regulate their interactions with one another, and how human societies eventually
grew into forms of previously unimaginable complexity. The most successful of the
many millennia-old experiments in how to live, he contends, survive in our values
today. Drawing on natural science, social science, and philosophy to develop an approach
he calls "pragmatic naturalism," Kitcher reveals the power of an evolving ethics built
around a few core principles--including justice and cooperation--but leaving room
for a diversity of communities and modes of self-expression. Ethics emerges as a beautifully
human phenomenon--permanently unfinished, collectively refined and distorted generation
by generation. Our human values, Kitcher shows, can be understood not as a final system
but as a project--the ethical project--in which our species has engaged for most of
its history, and which has been central to who we are. -- Book Description
Sujet(s) : Évolutionnisme
Morale évolutionniste
Développement moral
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 9780674061446 (hardcover) (alk. paper). - ISBN 0674061446 (hardcover) (alk. paper)
(rel.)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb42677210s
Notice n° :
FRBNF42677210
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
