The Autonomy of Morality

by Charles Larmore

• ISBN13: 9780521717823
• ISBN10: 0521717825
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-07-14
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

In The Autonomy of Morality Charles Larmore challenges two ideas that have shaped the modern mind. The world, he argues, is not a realm of value-neutral fact, nor does human freedom consist in imposing principles of our own devising on an alien reality. Rather, reason consists in being responsive to reasons for thought and action that arise from the world itself. Larmore shows that the moral good has an authority that speaks for itself. Only in this light does the true basis of a liberal political order come into view, as well as the role of unexpected goods in the makeup of a life lived well.

Author Biography

Charles Larmore is W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Brown University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Response and Commitment	p. 1
Reason and Reasons
History and Truth	p. 19
Historicist Skepticism	p. 20
Growth and Progress	p. 22
Agreeing and Coping	p. 25
Overcoming Dualisms	p. 28
Moral Progress	p. 30
Back to Kant? No Way	p. 33
Kant's Modesty	p. 34
Dualisms and Ultimate Principles	p. 37
Kant on Reason	p. 39
The Fate of Autonomy	p. 43
Attending to Reasons	p. 47
Introduction	p. 47
Experience and Reality	p. 51
Experience as a Tribunal	p. 55
Platonisms	p. 60
The Conservation of Trouble	p. 64
The Moral Point of View
John Rawls and Moral Philosophy	p. 69
The One and the Many	p. 69
The Critique of Utilitarianism	p. 72
Hume vs. Kant	p. 76
Moral Constructivism	p. 81
The Autonomy of Morality	p. 87
The Problem with Morality	p. 87
Morality and Advantage	p. 91
Instrumentalism and Its Failure	p. 95
Letting Morality Speak for Itself	p. 103
The Ethics of Autonomy	p. 105
Reflection and Reasons	p. 112
Reconceiving the World	p. 123
Reconceiving the Mind	p. 129
Political Principles
The Moral Basis of Political Liberalism	p. 139
Introduction	p. 139
Classical and Political Liberalism	p. 144
Political Legitimacy and Moral Respect	p. 146
Rawls' Ambiguities	p. 149
What Habermas and Rawls Share	p. 153
Metaphysics and Politics	p. 155
Habermas' Ideal of Political Autonomy	p. 158
Democracy and Liberalism	p. 160
Freedom and Morality	p. 164
The Meanings of Political Freedom	p. 168
Three Concepts of Liberty	p. 169
Freedom and Self-Government	p. 175
Freedom and Pluralism	p. 178
Republican vs. Liberal	p. 184
Domination and Respect	p. 190
Public Reason	p. 196
Publicity in A Theory of Justice	p. 197
From Publicity to Public Reason	p. 203
The Domain of Public Reason	p. 208
Aims and Exceptions	p. 213
Conclusion	p. 219
Truth and Chance
Nietzsche and the Will to Truth	p. 223
Pious and Free Spirits	p. 223
Truth and Morality	p. 225
Deception and Self-deception	p. 227
Truth and Thought	p. 230
Perspectivism	p. 234
Truth as a Goal	p. 237
Overcoming the Ascetic Attitude	p. 243
The Idea of a Life Plan	p. 246
A Philosophical Prejudice	p. 246
Ancient Roots	p. 253
The Rawlsian Conception	p. 259
Some Other Objections	p. 262
Prudence and Wisdom	p. 268
Index	p. 273
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