Download or read book Art Morality and Human Nature written by John Haldane and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection brings together the text of the monograph Art and Morality by the philosopher Richard Beardsmore along with fourteen other essays (both published and previously unpublished) in which he explores further some of the themes of his seminal book. With the revival of interest among philosophers and others in the relationships between art and morality the publication of this material is especially timely. Beardsmore's original contribution first introduced the principal terminology in which discussions have been expressed and many of the later essays showed the influence of Wittgenstein. The publication of this anthology of his writings on these themes has been welcomed by others writing on the same or related themes.
Download or read book Art Morality and Human Nature written by John Haldane and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-06-07 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection brings together the text of the monograph Art and Morality by the philosopher Richard Beardsmore along with fourteen other essays (both published and previously unpublished) in which he explores further some of the themes of his seminal book. With the revival of interest among philosophers and others in the relationships between art and morality the publication of this material is especially timely. Beardsmore's original contribution first introduced the principal terminology in which discussions have been expressed and many of the later essays showed the influence of Wittgenstein. The publication of this anthology of his writings on these themes has been welcomed by others writing on the same or related themes.
Download or read book Strange Tools written by Alva Noë and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A philosopher makes the case for thinking of works of art as tools for investigating ourselves In his new book, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, the philosopher and cognitive scientist Alva Noë raises a number of profound questions: What is art? Why do we value art as we do? What does art reveal about our nature? Drawing on philosophy, art history, and cognitive science, and making provocative use of examples from all three of these fields, Noë offers new answers to such questions. He also shows why recent efforts to frame questions about art in terms of neuroscience and evolutionary biology alone have been and will continue to be unsuccessful.
Download or read book Aristotle s Ethics written by Hope May and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02-18 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to the topic of human happiness. Yet, although Aristotle's conception of happiness is central to his whole philosophical project, there is much controversy surrounding it. Hope May offers a new interpretation of Aristotle's account of happiness - one which incorporates Aristotle's views about the biological development of human beings. May argues that the relationship amongst the moral virtues, the intellectual virtues, and happiness, is best understood through the lens of developmentalism. On this view, happiness emerges from the cultivation of a number of virtues that are developmentally related. May goes on to show how contemporary scholarship in psychology, ethical theory and legal philosophy signals a return to Aristotelian ethics. Specifically, May shows how a theory of motivation known as Self-Determination Theory and recent research on goal attainment have deep affinities to Aristotle's ethical theory. May argues that this recent work can ground a contemporary virtue theory that acknowledges the centrality of autonomy in a way that captures the fundamental tenets of Aristotle's ethics.
Download or read book John Dewey and the Artful Life written by Scott R. Stroud and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-09-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aesthetic experience has had a long and contentious history in the Western intellectual tradition. Following Kant and Hegel, a human’s interaction with nature or art frequently has been conceptualized as separate from issues of practical activity or moral value. This book examines how art can be seen as a way of moral cultivation. Scott Stroud uses the thought of the American pragmatist John Dewey to argue that art and the aesthetic have a close connection to morality. Dewey gives us a way to reconceptualize our ideas of ends, means, and experience so as to locate the moral value of aesthetic experience in the experience of absorption itself, as well as in the experience of reflective attention evoked by an art object.
Download or read book The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics written by Michael B. Gill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-07-31 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncovering the historical roots of naturalistic, secular contemporary ethics, in this volume Michael Gill shows how the British moralists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries completed a Copernican revolution in moral philosophy. They effected a shift from thinking of morality as independent of human nature to thinking of it as part of human nature itself. He also shows how the British Moralists - sometimes inadvertently, sometimes by design - disengaged ethical thinking, first from distinctly Christian ideas and then from theistic commitments altogether. Examining in detail the arguments of Whichcote, Cudworth, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson against Calvinist conceptions of original sin and egoistic conceptions of human motivation, Gill also demonstrates how Hume combined the ideas of earlier British moralists with his own insights to produce an account of morality and human nature that undermined some of his predecessors' most deeply held philosophical goals.
Download or read book Art Ethics and the Human Animal Relationship written by Linda Johnson and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-09-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the works of major artists between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, as important barometers of individual and collective values toward non-human life. Once viewed as merely representational, these works can also be read as tangential or morally instrumental by way of formal analysis and critical theories. Chapter Two demonstrates the discrimination toward large and small felines in Genesis and The Book of Revelation. Chapter Three explores the cruel capture of free roaming animals and how artists depicted their furs, feathers and shells in costume as symbols of virtue and vice. Chapter Four identifies speciest beliefs between donkeys and horses. Chapter Five explores the altered Dutch kitchen spaces and disguised food animals in various culinary constructs in still life painting. Chapter Six explores the animal substances embedded in pigments. Chapter Seven examines animals in absentia-in the crafting of brushes. The book concludes with the fish paintings of William Merritt Chase whose glazing techniques demonstrate an artistic approach that honors fishes as sentient beings.
Download or read book Art Ethics Education written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book can be viewed as a series of investigations into the ongoing imbrications of the practices of art, ethics and education as conducted within each author’s specific context of practice as artist, educator, researcher. It constitutes an international anthology of explorations that are by no means exclusive but conscious of the ongoing iterations, mutations and individuations of relations between art, ethics and education, which, in turn, seek to expand how we might conceive these terms as practices. This ongoing evolution reminds us that as practices art, ethics and education are always incomplete processes affected by and affecting their specific milieus and environments. Chapters within the book cover a wide range of ethical questions and educational contexts, broaching subjects as varied as higher education, artificial intelligence, animal ethics, transcultural encounters, collaborative art, the education of senior citizens and experiences of conflict. Art, ethics and education are not conceived in terms of established orders, representations, ideals, criteria or bodies of knowledge and practice, but rather in terms of dynamic, relational processes and their potentialities, that arise within specific locations, cartographies and ecologies of practice. The notions of art, ethics and education are viewed in terms of assemblages that have the capacity to generate new modes of practice that may question established values and advance new overlappings of aesthetic, ethical and political relations. Contributors are: Dennis Atkinson, Hashim Al Azzam, John Baldacchino, Bazon Brock, Carl-Peter Buschkühle, Sahin Celikten, Ana Dimke, Brian Grassom, Leena Hannula, Brian Hughes, jan jagodzinski, Timo Jokela, Mira Kallio-Tavin, Joachim Kettel, Guillermo Marini, Catarina Martins, Joe Sacco, Francisco Schwember, Juuso Tervo, Raphael Vella and Branka Vujanovic.
Download or read book Revealing Art written by Matthew Kieran and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does art matter to us, and what makes it good? Why is the role of imagination so important in art? Illustrated with carefully chosen colour and black-and-white plates of examples from Michaelangelo to Matisse and Poussin to Pollock, Revealing Art takes us on a compelling and provocative journey. Kieran explores some of the most important questions we can ask ourselves about art: how can art inspire us or disgust us? Is artistic judgement simply a matter of taste? Can art be immoral or obscene, and should it be censored? He brings such abstract issues to life with fascinating discussions of individual paintings, photographs and sculptures, such as Michelangelo's Pieta, Andres Serrano's Piss Christ and Francis Bacon's powerful paintings of the Pope. He also suggests some answers to problems that any one in an art gallery or museum is likely to ask themselves: what is a beautiful work of art? and can art really reveal something true about our own nature? Revealing Art is ideal for anyone interested in debates about art today, or who has simply stood in front of a painting and felt baffled.
Download or read book The Future of Human Nature written by Jürgen Habermas and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent developments in biotechnology and genetic research are raising complex ethical questions concerning the legitimate scope and limits of genetic intervention. As we begin to contemplate the possibility of intervening in the human genome to prevent diseases, we cannot help but feel that the human species might soon be able to take its biological evolution in its own hands. ‘Playing God’ is the metaphor commonly used for this self-transformation of the species, which, it seems, might soon be within our grasp. In this important new book, Jürgen Habermas – the most influential philosopher and social thinker in Germany today – takes up the question of genetic engineering and its ethical implications and subjects it to careful philosophical scrutiny. His analysis is guided by the view that genetic manipulation is bound up with the identity and self-understanding of the species. We cannot rule out the possibility that knowledge of one’s own hereditary factors may prove to be restrictive for the choice of an individual’s way of life and may undermine the symmetrical relations between free and equal human beings. In the concluding chapter – which was delivered as a lecture on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2001 – Habermas broadens the discussion to examine the tension between science and religion in the modern world, a tension which exploded, with such tragic violence, on September 11th.
Download or read book The Battle for Human Nature Science Morality and Modern Life written by Barry Schwartz and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1987-08-17 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Provocative and richly textured. . . .Schwartz’s analyses of the inadequacies of contemporary scientific views of human nature are compelling, but the consequences are even more worthy of note.” —Los Angeles Times Out of the investigations and speculations of contemporary science, a challenging view of human behavior and society has emerged and gained strength. It is a view that equates “human nature” utterly and unalterably with the pursuit of self-interest. Influenced by this view, people increasingly appeal to natural imperatives, instead of moral ones, to explain and justify their actions and those of others.
Download or read book On Human Nature written by Roger Scruton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brief, radical defense of human uniqueness from acclaimed philosopher Roger Scruton In this short book, acclaimed writer and philosopher Roger Scruton presents an original and radical defense of human uniqueness. Confronting the views of evolutionary psychologists, utilitarian moralists, and philosophical materialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, Scruton argues that human beings cannot be understood simply as biological objects. We are not only human animals; we are also persons, in essential relation with other persons, and bound to them by obligations and rights. Scruton develops and defends his account of human nature by ranging widely across intellectual history, from Plato and Averroës to Darwin and Wittgenstein. The book begins with Kant’s suggestion that we are distinguished by our ability to say “I”—by our sense of ourselves as the centers of self-conscious reflection. This fact is manifested in our emotions, interests, and relations. It is the foundation of the moral sense, as well as of the aesthetic and religious conceptions through which we shape the human world and endow it with meaning. And it lies outside the scope of modern materialist philosophy, even though it is a natural and not a supernatural fact. Ultimately, Scruton offers a new way of understanding how self-consciousness affects the question of how we should live. The result is a rich view of human nature that challenges some of today’s most fashionable ideas about our species.
Download or read book Athletic Enhancement Human Nature and Ethics written by Jan Tolleneer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-09 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book provides an in-depth discussion on the human nature concept from different perspectives and from different disciplines, analyzing its use in the doping debate and researching its normative overtones. The relation between natural talent and enhanced abilities is scrutinized within a proper conceptual and theoretical framework: is doping to be seen as a factor of the athlete’s dehumanization or is it a tool to fulfill his/her aspirations to go faster, higher and stronger? Which characteristics make sports such a peculiar subject of ethical discussion and what are the, both intrinsic and extrinsic, moral dangers and opportunities involved in athletic enhancement? This volume combines fundamental philosophical anthropological reflection with applied ethics and socio-cultural and empirical approaches. Furthermore guidelines will be presented to decision- and policy-makers on local, national and international levels. Zooming in on the intrinsic issue of what is valuable about our homo sapiens biological condition, this volume devotes only scant attention to the specific issue of natural talent and why such talent is appreciated so differently than biotechnological origins of ability. In addition, specific aspects of sports such as its competitive nature and its direct display of bodily prowess provide good reason to single out the issue of natural athletic talent for sustained ethical scrutiny.
Download or read book Body Soul written by J. P. Moreland and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2009-09-20 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While most people throughout history have believed that we are both physical and spiritual beings, the rise of science has called into question the existence of the soul. Many now argue that neurophysiology demonstrates the radical dependence, indeed, identity, between mind and brain. Advances in genetics and in mapping human DNA, some say, show there is no need for the hypothesis of body-soul dualism. Even many Christian intellectuals have come to view the soul as a false Greek concept that is outdated and unbiblical. Concurrent with the demise of dualism has been the rise of advanced medical technologies that have brought to the fore difficult issues at both edges of life. Central to questions about abortion, fetal research, reproductive techologies, cloning and euthanasia is our understanding of the nature of human personhood, the reality of life after death and the value of ethical or religious knowledge as compared to scientific knowledge. In this careful treatment, J. P. Moreland and Scott B. Rae argue that the rise of these problems alongside the demise of Christian dualism is no coincidence. They therefore employ a theological realism to meet these pressing issues, and to present a reasonable and biblical depiction of human nature as it impinges upon critical ethical concerns. This vigorous philosophical and ethical defense of human nature as body and soul, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees, will be for all a touchstone for debate and discussion for years to come.
Download or read book Nietzsche on Art and Life written by Daniel Came and published by . This book was released on 2014-04 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nietzsche had a particular interest in the relationship between art and life, and in art's contribution to his philosophical aims—to identify the conditions of the affirmation of life, cultural renewal, and exemplary human living. These new essays demonstrate that understanding his engagement with art is essential for understanding his philosophy.
Download or read book Just Babies written by Paul Bloom and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates. Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice. Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race. In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases. Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery. Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than just babies. Paul Bloom has a gift for bringing abstract ideas to life, moving seamlessly from Darwin, Herodotus, and Adam Smith to The Princess Bride, Hannibal Lecter, and Louis C.K. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.
Download or read book Morality for Humans written by Mark Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-09-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A welcome renewal and defense of John Dewey's ethical naturalism, which Johnson claims is the only morality ‘fit for actual human beings.’” —Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews What is the difference between right and wrong? This is no easy question to answer, yet we constantly try to make it so, frequently appealing to absolutes, whether drawn from God, universal reason, or societal authority. Combining cognitive science with a pragmatist philosophical framework, Mark Johnson argues that appealing solely to absolute principles is not only scientifically unsound but even morally suspect. He shows that the standards for the kinds of people we should be and how we should treat one another are frequently subject to change. Taking context into consideration, he offers a nuanced, naturalistic view of ethics that sees us creatively adapt our standards according to given needs, emerging problems, and social interactions. Ethical naturalism is not just a revamped form of relativism. Indeed, Johnson attempts to overcome the absolutist-versus-relativist impasse that has been one of the most intractable problems in the history of philosophy. Much of our moral thought, he shows, is automatic and intuitive, gut feelings that we attempt to justify with rational analysis and argument. However, good moral deliberation is not limited to intuitive judgments supported after the fact by reasoning. Johnson points out a crucial third element: we imagine how our decisions will play out, how we or the world would change with each action we might take. Plumbing this imaginative dimension of moral reasoning, he provides a psychologically sophisticated view of moral problem solving, one perfectly suited for the embodied, culturally embedded, and ever-developing human creatures that we are.
