Download or read book Self Love Egoism and the Selfish Hypothesis written by Christian Maurer and published by EUP. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do people only act out of self-interest? Or is there a less pessimistic explanation for human behaviour? Maurer delves into early-Enlightenment debates on self-love from both famous and lesser known authors, including Lord Shaftesbury, Bernard Mandeville, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Butler, Archibald Campbell, David Hume and Adam Smith.
Download or read book Self love Egoism and the Selfish Hypothesis written by Maurer Christian Maurer and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-21 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dawn of the Enlightenment saw heated debates on self-love. Do people only act out of self-interest? Or is there a less pessimistic explanation for human behaviour? Maurer delves into the contributions to these debates from both famous and lesser known authors, including Lord Shaftesbury, Bernard Mandeville, Francis Hutcheson, Joseph Butler, Archibald Campbell, David Hume and Adam Smith, and puts them in their philosophical, theological and economic context. Maurer identifies five distinct conceptions of self-love and looks at their role within theories of human psychology and morality while drawing attention to the heuristic limits of our contemporary notion of egoism. He compares the central arguments and the different strategies intended to morally rehabilitate human nature and self-love before and during the Enlightenment.
Download or read book The Selfish Gene written by Richard Dawkins and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1989 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science need not be dull and bogged down by jargon, as Richard Dawkins proves in this entertaining look at evolution. The themes he takes up are the concepts of altruistic and selfish behaviour; the genetical definition of selfish interest; the evolution of aggressive behaviour; kinshiptheory; sex ratio theory; reciprocal altruism; deceit; and the natural selection of sex differences. 'Should be read, can be read by almost anyone. It describes with great skill a new face of the theory of evolution.' W.D. Hamilton, Science
Download or read book Self Interest and Social Order in Classical Liberalism written by George H. Smith and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a well-worn image and phrase for libertarianism: ?atomized individualism.? This hobgoblin has spread so thoroughly that even some libertarians think their philosophy unreservedly supports private persons, whatever the situation, whatever their behavior. Smith?s Self-Interest and Social Order in Classical Liberalism, corrects this misrepresentation with careful intellectual surveys of Hume, Smith, Hobbes, Butler, Mandeville, and Hutcheson and their respective contributions to political philosophy.
Download or read book David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism written by Tamás Demeter and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hume has a canonical place in the context of moral philosophy, but his insights are less frequently discussed in relation to natural philosophy. David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism offers a discussion of Hume’s methodological and ideological commitments in matters of knowledge as reflected in his language and outlook. Tamás Demeter argues that several aspects of Hume’s moral philosophy reflect post-Newtonian tendencies in the aftermath of the Opticks, and show affinities with Newton-inspired Scottish physiology and chemistry. Consequently, when Hume describes his project as an 'anatomy of the mind' he uses a metaphor that expresses his commitment to study human cognitive and affective functioning on analogy with active and organic nature, and not with the Principia’s world of inert matter.
Download or read book Pathological Altruism written by Barbara Oakley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-19 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The benefits of altruism and empathy are obvious. These qualities are so highly regarded and embedded in both secular and religious societies that it seems almost heretical to suggest they can cause harm. Like most good things, however, altruism can be distorted or taken to an unhealthy extreme. Pathological Altruism presents a number of new, thought-provoking theses that explore a range of hurtful effects of altruism and empathy. Pathologies of empathy, for example, may trigger depression as well as the burnout seen in healthcare professionals. The selflessness of patients with eating abnormalities forms an important aspect of those disorders. Hyperempathy - an excess of concern for what others think and how they feel - helps explain popular but poorly defined concepts such as codependency. In fact, pathological altruism, in the form of an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one's own needs, may underpin some personality disorders. Pathologies of altruism and empathy not only underlie health issues, but also a disparate slew of humankind's most troubled features, including genocide, suicide bombing, self-righteous political partisanship, and ineffective philanthropic and social programs that ultimately worsen the situations they are meant to aid. Pathological Altruism is a groundbreaking new book - the first to explore the negative aspects of altruism and empathy, seemingly uniformly positive traits. The contributing authors provide a scientific, social, and cultural foundation for the subject of pathological altruism, creating a new field of inquiry. Each author's approach points to one disturbing truth: what we value so much, the altruistic "good" side of human nature, can also have a dark side that we ignore at our peril.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century written by James Anthony Harris and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the full range of philosophical writing in Britain in the eighteenth century. A team of experts provide new accounts of both major and lesser-known thinkers, and explores the diverse approaches in the period to logic and metaphysics, the passions, morality, criticism, and politics.
Download or read book The Methods of Ethics written by Henry Sidgwick and published by Gale and the British Library. This book was released on 1874 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beyond Self Interest written by Jane J. Mansbridge and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1990-04-15 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dramatic transformation has begun in the way scholars think about human nature. Political scientists, psychologists, economists, and evolutionary biologists are beginning to reject the view that human affairs are shaped almost exclusively by self-interest—a view that came to dominate social science in the last three decades. In Beyond Self-Interest, leading social scientists argue for a view of individuals behavior and social organization that takes into account the powerful motivations of duty, love, and malevolence. Economists who go beyond "economic man," psychologists who go beyond stimulus-response, evolutionary biologists who go beyond the "selfish gene," and political scientists who go beyond the quest for power come together in this provocative and important manifesto. The essays trace, from the ancient Greeks to the present, the use of self-interest to explain political life. They investigate the differences between self-interest and the motivations of duty and love, showing how these motivations affect behavior in "prisoners' dilemma" interactions. They generate evolutionary models that explain how altruistic motivations escape extinction. They suggest ways to model within one individual the separate motivations of public spirit and self-interest, investigate public spirit and self-interest, investigate public spirit in citizen and legislative behavior, and demonstrate that the view of democracy in existing Constitutional interpretations is not based on self-interest. They advance both human evil and mothering as alternatives to self-interest, this last in a penetrating feminist critique of the "contract" model of human interaction.
Download or read book From Moral Theology to Moral Philosophy written by Tim Stuart-Buttle and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tim Stuart-Buttle offers a fresh view of British moral philosophy in the 17th and early 18th centuries. In this period of remarkable innovation, philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, and Hume combined critique of the role of Christianity in moral thought with reconsideration of the legacy of the classical tradition of academic scepticism.
Download or read book Sacrifice Regained written by Roger Crisp and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does being virtuous make you happy? Roger Crisp examines the answers to this ancient question provided by the so-called 'British Moralists', from Thomas Hobbes, around 1650, for the next two hundred years, until Jeremy Bentham. This involves elucidating their views on happiness (self-interest, or well-being) and on virtue (or morality), in order to bring out the relation of each to the other. Themes ran through many of these writers: psychological egoism, evaluative hedonism, and—after Hobbes—the acceptance of self-standing moral reasons. But there are exceptions, and even those taking the standard views adopt them for very different reasons and express them in various ways. As the ancients tended to believe that virtue and happiness largely coincide, so these modern authors are inclined to accept posthumous reward and punishment. Both positions sit uneasily with the common-sense idea that a person can truly sacrifice their own good for the sake of morality or for others. This book shows that David Hume—a hedonist whose ethics made no appeal to the afterlife—was the first major British moralist to allow for, indeed to recommend, such self-sacrifice. Morality and well-being of course remain central to modern ethics, and Crisp demonstrates how much there is to learn from this remarkable group of philosophers.
Download or read book The Data of Ethics written by Herbert Spencer and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Curse of the Self written by Mark R. Leary and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the capacity for self-awareness is an essential aspect of human nature, self-reflection comes at a high price. Self-awareness and its accompanying egoism profoundly affect people's lives, interfering with their success, polluting their relationships with other people, and undermining their happiness. Drawing from work in psychology and other behavioral sciences, in The Curse of the Self, Mark Leary explores personal and social problems that are created by the human capacity for self-reflection and offers insights regarding how these problems may be minimized.
Download or read book Max Stirner s Egoism written by John P. Clark and published by Freedom Press (CA). This book was released on 1976 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major essay on the basis of individualist thought, with reference to the major influence of Stirner.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science written by Emma M. Seppälä and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do we define compassion? Is it an emotional state, a motivation, a dispositional trait, or a cultivated attitude? How does it compare to altruism and empathy? Chapters in this Handbook present critical scientific evidence about compassion in numerous conceptions. All of these approaches to thinking about compassion are valid and contribute importantly to understanding how we respond to others who are suffering. Covering multiple levels of our lives and self-concept, from the individual, to the group, to the organization and culture, The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science gathers evidence and models of compassion that treat the subject of compassion science with careful scientific scrutiny and concern. It explores the motivators of compassion, the effect on physiology, the co-occurrence of wellbeing, and compassion training interventions. Sectioned by thematic approaches, it pulls together basic and clinical research ranging across neurobiological, developmental, evolutionary, social, clinical, and applied areas in psychology such as business and education. In this sense, it comprises one of the first multidisciplinary and systematic approaches to examining compassion from multiple perspectives and frames of reference. With contributions from well-established scholars as well as young rising stars in the field, this Handbook bridges a wide variety of diverse perspectives, research methodologies, and theory, and provides a foundation for this new and rapidly growing field. It should be of great value to the new generation of basic and applied researchers examining compassion, and serve as a catalyst for academic researchers and students to support and develop the modern world.
Download or read book The Sense of an Ending written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-10-05 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BOOKER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A novel that follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he never much thought about—until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance: one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single setting, The Sense of an Ending has the psychological and emotional depth and sophistication of Henry James at his best, and is a stunning achievement in Julian Barnes's oeuvre. Tony Webster thought he left his past behind as he built a life for himself, and his career has provided him with a secure retirement and an amicable relationship with his ex-wife and daughter, who now has a family of her own. But when he is presented with a mysterious legacy, he is forced to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.
Download or read book Self and Others written by Jan Österberg and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. The Aim of This Essay Ethical Egoism, the doctrine that, roughly speaking, one should promote one's own good, has been a live issue since the very beginnings of moral philosophy. Historically, it is the most widely held normative theory, and, next to Utilitarianism, it is the most intensely debated one. What is at stake in this debate is a fundamental question of ethics: 'Is there any reason, except self-interest, for considering the interests of other people?' The ethical egoist answers No to this question, thus rejecting the received conception of morality. Is Ethical Egoism an acceptable position? There are many forms of Ethical Egoism, and each may be interpreted in several different ways. So the relevant question is rather, 'Is there an acceptable version of Ethical It is the main aim of this essay to answer this question. This Egoism?' means that I will be confronted with many other controversial questions, for example, 'What is a moral principle?', 'Is value objective or subjec tive?', 'What is the nature of the self?' For the acceptability of most ver sions of Ethical Egoism, it has been alleged, depends on what answers are given to questions such as these. (I will show that in some of these cases there is in fact no such dependence. ) It is, of course, impossible to ad equately discuss all these questions within the compass of my essay.
