Morals from Motives

by Slote, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780195170207
• ISBN10: 0195170202
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-02
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Morals from Motives develops a virtue ethics inspired more by Hume and Hutcheson's moral sentimentalism than by recently-influential Aristotelianism. It argues that a reconfigured and expanded "morality of caring" can offer a general account of right and wrong action as well as social justice.Expanding the frontiers of ethics, it goes on to show how a motive-based "pure" virtue theory can also help us to understand the nature of human well-being and practical reason.

Table of Contents

PART I: MORALITY AND JUSTICE
ONE Agent-Based Virtue Ethics	3	(35)
1. Virtue Ethics	3	(7)
2. Objections to Agent-Basing	10	(9)
3. Morality as Inner Strength	19	(4)
4. Morality as Universal Benevolence	23	(6)
5. Morality as Caring and Further Aspects of Agent Basing	29	(9)
TWO Morality and the Practical	38	(25)
1. Is Agent-Basing Practical?	38	(13)
2. The Value of Conscientiousness	51	(7)
3. Moral Conflict	58	(5)
THREE The Structure of Caring	63	(29)
1. Caring and Love	64	(5)
2. Balanced Caring	69	(5)
3. Balanced Caring versus Aggregative Partialisen	74	(3)
4. Self Concern	77	(2)
5. Sentimentalist Deontology	79	(9)
6. Caring versus the Philosophers	88	(4)
FOUR The Justice of Caring	92	(22)
1. From the Personal to the Political	93	(6)
2. Social Justice	99	(4)
3. Laws and Their Application	103	(6)
4. Conclusion	109	(5)
FIVE Universal Benevolence versus Caring	114	(27)
1. Universal Benevolence and Universal Love	115	(4)
2. The Justice of Universal Benevolence	119	(2)
3. Humanitarianism and Religious Belief	121	(10)
4. Humanitarianism and Intolerance	131	(5)
5. The Choice between Caring and Universal Benevolence	136	(5)
PART II. PRACTICAL RATIONALITY AND HUMAN GOOD
SIX The Virtue in Self-Interest	141	(28)
1. Unification in Utilitarianism	142	(3)
2. Elevation versus Reduction	145	(4)
3. Is Elevationism Viable?	149	(3)
4. Aristotelian Elevationism	152	(3)
5. Platonic Elevationism	155	(11)
6. Conclusion	166	(3)
SEVEN Agent-Based Practical Reason	169	(28)
1. Conceptions of Practical Reason	169	(2)
2. Agent-Based Rationality	171	(9)
3. Practical Reason and Self Interest	180	(4)
4. The Rational Requirements of Morality	184	(7)
5. Conclusion	191	(6)
EIGHT Extending the Approach	197	(16)
1. Hyper-Agent-Basing	197	(13)
2. General Conclusion	210	(3)
Index	213