Download or read book History and Morality written by Donald Bloxham and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against majority opinion within his profession, Donald Bloxham argues that it is legitimate, often unavoidable, and frequently important for historians to make value judgements about the past. History and Morality draws on a wide range of historical examples, and its author's insights as a practicing historian. Examining concepts like impartiality, neutrality, contextualisation, and the use and abuse of the idea of the past as a foreign country, Bloxham's book investigates how far tacit moral judgements infuse works of history, and how strange those histories would look if the judgements were removed. The author argues that rather than trying to eradicate all judgemental elements from their work, historians need to think more consistently about how, and with what justification, they make the judgements that they do. The importance of all this lies not just in the responsibilities that historians bear towards the past - responsibilities to take historical actors on those actors' own terms and to portray the impact of those actors' deeds - but also in the role of history as a source of identity, pride, and shame in the present. The account of moral thought in History and Morality has ramifications far beyond the activities of vocational historians.

Download or read book Morality A Natural History written by Roger V. Moseley and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2019-10-17 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is morality and what is the source of our moral ideas? Philosophers have explored these questions for centuries, suggesting that both emotion and reason play roles but failing to explain how and why Homo sapiens developed these ideas. Author Roger Moseley argues that evolutionary forces that optimize human welfare provide the missing explanation. Morality: A Natural History presents a multi-disciplinary analysis of the topic and reveals a common thread among the seemingly diverse fields of religion, neuroscience, experimental psychology and game theory, child development, evolution and animal behavior, and anthropology and sociology. When humans first appeared, a simple self-interested survival morality sufficed. As societies became more complex, however, rules of behavior became necessary to limit conflict and promote cooperation. The brain evolved, producing language that allowed the articulation of moral ideas which were codified and enforced by religion and social forces. No species lasts forever, and it is at our peril today that we neglect those evolved moral values of cooperation, altruism, truthfulness, and empathy. Rooted in scientific evidence and interspersed with personal anecdotes and humorous observations, Moseley provides a unique perspective on the natural history of morality – how it appeared, evolved, and continues to evolve today. Morality: A Natural History is essential reading for academics and laypersons alike who seek to understand the origin and essence of human morality.

Download or read book The Evolution of Morality written by Richard Joyce and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007-08-24 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking—staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms—if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"—might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject. Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality.

Download or read book A Natural History of Human Morality written by Michael Tomasello and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-04 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Tomasello offers the most detailed account to date of the evolution of human moral psychology. Based on experimental data comparing great apes and human children, he reconstructs two key evolutionary steps whereby early humans gradually became an ultra-cooperative and, eventually, a moral species capable of acting as a plural agent “we”.

Download or read book God and Morality written by John E. Hare and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-08-17 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God and Morality evaluates the ethical theories of four principle philosophers, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Kant, and R.M. Hare. Uses their thinking as the basis for telling the story of the history and development of ethical thought more broadly Focuses specifically on their writings on virtue, will, duty, and consequence Concentrates on the theistic beliefs to highlight continuity of philosophical thought

Download or read book Essays on the History of Moral Philosophy written by J. B. Schneewind and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J.B. Schneewind presents a selection of his published essays on ethics, the history of ethics and moral psychology, together with a new piece offering an intellectual autobiography. The essays range across the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, with a particular focus on Kant and his relation to earlier thinkers.

Download or read book Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy written by John Rawls and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constantly revised and refined over three decades, Rawls's lectures on various historical figures reflect his developing and changing views on the history of liberalism and democracy. With its careful analyses of the doctrine of the social contract, utilitarianism, and socialism, this volume has a critical place in the traditions it expounds.

Download or read book Truth Morality and Meaning in History written by Paul T. Phillips and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this important new book, Paul T. Phillips argues that most professional historians - aside from a relatively small number devoted to theory and methodology - have concerned themselves with particular, specialized areas of research, thereby ignoring the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning. This is less so in the thriving general community of history enthusiasts beyond academia, and may explain, in part at least, history's sharp decline as a subject of choice by students in recent years. Phillips sees great dangers resulting from the thinking of extreme relativists and postmodernists on the futility of attaining historical truth, especially in the age of "post-truth." He also believes that moral judgment and the search for meaning in history should be considered part of the discipline's mandate. In each section of this study, Phillips outlines the nature of individual issues and past efforts to address them, including approaches derived from other disciplines. This book is a call to action for all those engaged in the study of history to direct more attention to the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Moral Philosophy written by Sacha Golob and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With fifty-four chapters charting the development of moral philosophy in the Western world, this volume examines the key thinkers and texts and their influence on the history of moral thought from the pre-Socratics to the present day. Topics including Epicureanism, humanism, Jewish and Arabic thought, perfectionism, pragmatism, idealism and intuitionism are all explored, as are figures including Aristotle, Boethius, Spinoza, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Rawls, as well as numerous key ideas and schools of thought. Chapters are written by leading experts in the field, drawing on the latest research to offer rigorous analysis of the canonical figures and movements of this branch of philosophy. The volume provides a comprehensive yet philosophically advanced resource for students and teachers alike as they approach, and refine their understanding of, the central issues in moral thought.

Download or read book The Quest for a Moral Compass written by Kenan Malik and published by Atlantic Books Ltd. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this remarkable and groundbreaking book, Kenan Malik explores the history of moral thought as it has developed over three millennia, from Homer's Greece to Mao's China, from ancient India to modern America. It tells the stories of the great philosophers, and breathes life into their ideas, while also challenging many of our most cherished moral beliefs. Engaging and provocative, The Quest for a Moral Compass confronts some of humanity's deepest questions. Where do values come from? Is God necessary for moral guidance? Are there absolute moral truths? It also brings morality down to earth, showing how, throughout history, social needs and political desires have shaped moral thinking. It is a history of the world told through the history of moral thought, and a history of moral thought that casts new light on global history. At a time of great social turbulence and moral uncertainty, there will be few histories more important than this.

Download or read book Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy written by Jonathan Wolff and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-27 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previously unpublished writings from one of the most important political philosophers of recent times G. A. Cohen was one of the leading political philosophers of recent times. He first came to wide attention in 1978 with the prize-winning book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. In subsequent decades his published writings largely turned away from the history of philosophy, focusing instead on equality, freedom, and justice. However, throughout his career he regularly lectured on a wide range of moral and political philosophers of the past. This volume collects these previously unpublished lectures. Starting with a chapter centered on Plato, but also discussing the pre-Socratics as well as Aristotle, the book moves to social contract theory as discussed by Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, and then continues with chapters on Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The book also contains some previously published but uncollected papers on Marx, Hobbes, and Kant, among other figures. The collection concludes with a memoir of Cohen written by the volume editor, Jonathan Wolff, who was a student of Cohen's. A hallmark of the lectures is Cohen's engagement with the thinkers he discusses. Rather than simply trying to render their thought accessible to the modern reader, he tests whether their arguments and positions are clear, sound, and free from contradiction. Throughout, he homes in on central issues and provides fresh approaches to the philosophers he examines. Ultimately, these lectures teach us not only about some of the great thinkers in the history of moral and political philosophy, but also about one of the great thinkers of our time: Cohen himself.

Download or read book Human Character and Morality written by Stephen D. Hudson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-27 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1986, this book explores the animating qualities of human character and moral thought and discusses how they place constraints on the adequacy of moral theories. It evaluates some of the major theories in the history of ethics, notably the moral thoughts of Sidgwick, Kant, Aristotle and Hume. The book examines questions of fundamental importance to all of us and broadens the scope and wisdom of analytical philosophy by conveying the excitement of original philosophical research.

Download or read book History and Morality written by Donald Bloxham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-02 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against majority opinion within his profession, Donald Bloxham argues that it is legitimate, often unavoidable, and frequently important for historians to make value judgements about the past. History and Morality draws on a wide range of historical examples, and its author's insights as a practicing historian. Examining concepts like impartiality, neutrality, contextualisation, and the use and abuse of the idea of the past as a foreign country, Bloxham's book investigates how far tacit moral judgements infuse works of history, and how strange those histories would look if the judgements were removed. The author argues that rather than trying to eradicate all judgemental elements from their work, historians need to think more consistently about how, and with what justification, they make the judgements that they do. The importance of all this lies not just in the responsibilities that historians bear towards the past - responsibilities to take historical actors on those actors' own terms and to portray the impact of those actors' deeds - but also in the role of history as a source of identity, pride, and shame in the present. The account of moral thought in History and Morality has ramifications far beyond the activities of vocational historians.

Download or read book Why History written by Donald Bloxham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the point of history? Why has the study of the past been so important for so long? Why History? A History contemplates two and a half thousand years of historianship to establish how very different thinkers in diverse contexts have conceived their activities, and to illustrate the purposes that their historical investigations have served. Whether considering Herodotus, medieval religious exegesis, or twentieth-century cultural history, at the core of this work is the way that the present has been conceived to relate to the past. Alongside many changes in technique and philosophy, Donald Bloxham's book reveals striking long-term continuities in justifications for the discipline.

Download or read book A Short History of Ethics written by Alasdair MacIntyre and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Short History of Ethics is a significant contribution written by one of the most important living philosophers. For the second edition Alasdair MacIntyre has included a new preface in which he examines his book “thirty years on” and considers its impact. It remains an important work, ideal for all students interested in ethics and morality.

Download or read book Moral History from Herodotus to Diodorus Siculus written by Hau Lisa Hau and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did human beings first begin to write history? Lisa Irene Hau argues that a driving force among Greek historians was the desire to use the past to teach lessons about the present and for the future. She uncovers the moral messages of the ancient Greek writers of history and the techniques they used to bring them across. Hau also shows how moral didacticism was an integral part of the writing of history from its inception in the 5th century BC, how it developed over the next 500 years in parallel with the development of historiography as a genre and how the moral messages on display remained surprisingly stable across this period. For the ancient Greek historiographers, moral didacticism was a way of making sense of the past and making it relevant to the present; but this does not mean that they falsified events: truth and morality were compatible and synergistic ends.

Download or read book The Origins of Morality written by Dennis Krebs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-08 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do people behave in moral ways in some circumstances, but not in others? In order to account fully for morality, Dennis Krebs departs from traditional approaches to morality that suggest that children acquire morals through socialization, cultural indoctrination, and moral reasoning. He suggests that such approaches can be subsumed, refined, and revised gainfully within an evolutionary framework. Relying on evolutionary theory, Krebs offers an account of how notions of morality originated in the human species. He updates Darwin's early ideas about how dispositions to obey authority, to control antisocial urges, and to behave in altruistic and cooperative ways originated and evolved, then goes on to update Darwin's account of how humans acquired a moral sense.Krebs explains why the theory of evolution does not dictate that all animals are selfish and immoral by nature. On the contrary, he argues that moral behaviors and moral judgments evolved to serve certain functions. Krebs examines theory and research on the evolution of primitive forms of prosocial conduct displayed by humans and other animals, then discusses the evolution of uniquely human prosocial behaviors. He describes how a sense of morality originated during the course of human evolution through strategic social interactions among members of small groups, and how it was expanded and refined in modern societies, explaining how this sense gives rise to culturally universal and culturally relative moral norms. Krebs argues that although humans' unique cognitive abilities endow them with the capacity to engage in sophisticated forms of moral reasoning, people rarely live up their potential in their everyday lives. Four conceptions of what it means to be a moral person are identified, with the conclusion that people are naturally inclined to meet the standards of each conception under certain conditions. The key to making the world a more moral place lies in creating environments in which good guys finish first and cheaters fail to prosper.