The Development of Ethics A Historical and Critical Study Volume II: From Suarez to Rousseau

by Irwin, Terence

• ISBN13: 9780199543274
• ISBN10: 0199543275
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Development of Ethics is a selective historical and critical study of moral philosophy in the Socratic tradition, with special attention to Aristotelian naturalism. It discusses the main topics of moral philosophy as they have developed historically, including: the human good, human nature, justice, friendship, and morality; the methods of moral inquiry; the virtues and their connections; will, freedom, and responsibility; reason and emotion; relativism, subjectivism, and realism; the theological aspect of morality. This volume examines early modern moral philosophy from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Volume 3 will continue the story up to Rawls's Theory of Justice. The present volume begins with Suarez's interpretation of Scholastic moral philosophy, and examines seventeenth- and eighteenth- century responses to the Scholastic outlook, to see how far they constitute a distinctively different conception of moral philosophy. The treatments of natural law by Grotius, Hobbes, Cumberland, and Pufendorf are treated in some detail. Disputes about moral facts, moral judgments, and moral motivation, are traced through Cudworth, Clarke, Balguy, Hutcheson, Hume, Price, and Reid. Butler's defense of a naturalist account of morality is examined and compared with the Aristotelian and Scholastic views discussed in Volume 1. The volume ends with a survey of the persistence of voluntarism in English moral philosophy, and a brief discussion of the contrasts and connections between Rousseau and earlier views on natural law. The emphasis of the book is not purely descriptive, narrative, or exegetical, but also philosophical. Irwin discusses the comparative merits of different views, the difficulties that they raise, and how some of the difficulties might be resolved. The book tries to present the leading moral philosophers of the past as participants in a rational discussion that is still being carried on, and tries to help the reader to participate in this discussion.

Author Biography

Terence Irwin is Professor of Ancient Philosophy in the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Keble College. From 1975 to 2006 he taught at Cornell University.

Table of Contents

law and obligation Suarez

naturalism Suarez

Natural law and 'modern' moral philosophy

Grotius

Motives and Reasons Hobbes

from Human Nature to Morality Hobbes

morality Hobbes

Spinoza

The 'British Moralists'

Cumberland and Maxwell

Cudworth

Locke and Natural Law

Pufendorf

Naturalism and Eudaemonism Leibniz

Pufendorf and Natural Law

Shaftesbury

Clarke

For and Against Moral Realism Hutcheson

For and Against Utilitarianism Hutcheson

a Defence of Rationalism Balguy

Morality and Natural Theology Balguy Clarke

Nature Butler

Superior Principles Butler

Naturalism and Morality Butler

Implications of Naturalism Butler

Nature Hume

Passion and Reason Hume

Errors of Objectivism Hume

the moral sense Hume

the Virtues Hume

Smith

Price

action and will Reid

knowledge and morality Reid

Voluntarism, egoism, and utilitarianism

Rousseau

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