The Reflective Life Living Wisely With Our Limits

by Tiberius, Valerie

• ISBN13: 9780199202867
• ISBN10: 0199202869
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

How should you live? Should you devote yourself to perfecting a single talent or try to live a balanced life? Should you lighten up and have more fun, or buckle down and try to achieve greatness? Should you try to be a better friend? Should you be self-critical or self-accepting? And how should you decide among the possibilities open to you? Should you consult experts, listen to your parents, do lots of research? Make lists of pros and cons, or go with your gut? These are not questions that can be answered in general or in the abstract. Rather, these questions are addressed to the first person point of view, to the perspective each of us occupies when we reflect on how to live without knowing exactly what we're aiming for. To answer them, The Reflective Life focuses on the process of living one's life from the inside, rather than on defining goals from the outside.

Author Biography

Valerie Tiberius is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota.

Table of Contents

The Reflective Life and Reflective Values
Introduction	p. 3
Living Well and Your Point of View	p. 3
Process and Goal: Why Start with the First-Person Point of View?	p. 9
Aristotle and Virtue	p. 16
A Road Map	p. 18
Reflective Values	p. 23
Value Commitments and Justification	p. 24
Reflective Values	p. 35
The Justification of Reflective Values: Some Concerns	p. 56
Conclusion: Values and the Challenges of Modern Life	p. 59
Wisdom and Perspective
Wisdom and Flexibility	p. 65
A Reflective Conception of a Good Life	p. 65
The Limits of Reflection and the Importance of Shifting Perspectives	p. 67
Attentional Flexibility	p. 77
Wisdom and Rationality	p. 83
Conclusion	p. 87
Perspective	p. 89
Having Perspective: Some Examples	p. 89
Perspective and Reflective Values	p. 91
Refining the Account of Perspective	p. 95
The Value of Perspective	p. 101
Conclusion	p. 107
Self-Awareness	p. 109
The Scope and Limits of Self-Knowledge	p. 111
Acquiring Self-Knowledge	p. 115
Moderate Self-Awareness: Habits and Skills	p. 120
The Value of Self-Awareness	p. 128
Conclusion	p. 136
Optimism	p. 137
Preliminaries: Endorsement and Virtue	p. 138
The Value of Being Realistic	p. 139
Cynicism	p. 140
Realistic Optimism	p. 148
The Value of Optimism	p. 154
Conclusion	p. 156
Beyond the First-Person Point of View
Morality and the Reflective Life	p. 161
Reflective Virtues and Moral Agency	p. 163
Wise Decisions and Value Conflicts	p. 168
Some Problems: Discretion, Complacency, and Intractable Conflicts	p. 174
Conclusion	p. 180
Normativity and Ethical Theory	p. 182
Arbitrariness and the Desire to Live Well	p. 185
Contingency	p. 190
The Painter and the Anatomist	p. 193
Conclusion	p. 196
Conclusion	p. 198
Bibliography	p. 203
Index	p. 215
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