NORMAN:THE MORAL PHILOSOPHERS 2/E PAPERBACK: An Introduction to Ethics

by Richard Norman

The second edition of this accessible book features a new chapter on Nietzsche and an entirely new Part III that covers contemporary utilitarianism, rights-based ethical theories, contractarian ethics and virtue ethics, and recent debates between realism and anti-realism in ethics. The strengths of the first edition--its readability, historical approach, coverage of specific moral philosophers, and detailed recommended reading sections at the beginning of each chapter--combined with the new material make this an essential resource for all readers interested in ethics.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

241 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 1984

Reviews

[Karenina (Nina Ruthström) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Svinbra förklaringar! Här görs det svårbegripliga begripligt bla med hjälp av samtida exempel. 👌🏼

[Chouba Nabil · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book on philosophie and I fall in love, it cant be better :)

#Plato: world of forms (world is unreal, only pleasure is intellectual: the pleasure of ideas)
We should seek harmony and balance. Rule by reason (is the just life) inhibition feeling (pleasure searching make us slave, working with impulse & obsession #extreme)
Moral knowledge is forms

#Aristotle: happiness is the highest good, it’s an end, is the purpose.
For philosopher living by reason: traditional virtue: observing the mean (have right feeling on right occasion, right reason, right degree, toward right person) No excess No deprivation.
For others ordinary people: Moral is built by experience with the world, its duty of a philosopher to set the rules for them to follow: Moral knowledge is empirical study of the facts of human existence.

#Hume: Moral knowledge does not exist: approval or denials derive from #sentiment (feeling, emotion) rather than reason.
1: We are affected by the happiness and suffering of others (society): rule utilitarian
2: (contradiction with rule 1 priority to rule 2) guarantees private property: social rule.
Justice as equality: People will never agree on about what they deserved and the result would be chaos. The pursuit of equality is at the bottom impracticable, people different on talent and abilities they tend toward inequality => justice is to guarantee what they have already :( private property).

#Kant: duty of duty’s sake: No justification for his claims: source divine
The ordinary moral consciousness: goodwill: (background: Christian Protestant #God)
Moral evaluation focus on people's intention, moral action is worthy only if it’s done for duty’s sake (not selfish end).
Treat human being as an end and never only as mean. We should be motivated by other people end as well by our own. Helping them to promote their (end) happiness and prevent their suffering.
Respect the other human => search for a mean of ends sum: yours + others (limit yourself to respect others: basic for human right)

#Mill: pleasure for pleasure's sake
Rule-utilitarianism (higher priority): duties of fidelity/reparation/gratitude/justice/beneficence/self-improvement/non-maleficence
Act-utilitarianism: Consequence: Actions are right if it produce more happiness than any alternative
The Greatest Happiness Principle #Bentham: do sum of quantitative (x qualitative) happiness of the society (- pain)

#Hegel: my station and its duty
Social self: people exist as connection (network-mirror) with society, from start you belong to a network: family/profession/state/.. You get all your knowledge from them. And you have a social function toward the networks (example: father/DFT engineer/Tunisian)
Identity of an individual is constituted (exist) by his relation to others #projection
Each relation carries specific ethic significance: friend / parent / partner / colleague / king
Self-realisation #Bradley (it’s not sum of happiness - pain) it has to do with the character of one’s life as a whole

#Nietzsche unmasker of religion morals / will to power (need) to make own mark in the world
No objective value, there are no moral facts: its illusion: we can only study the historical culture & psychological state. Moral is social phenomena (back to #Hegel) so moral is subject to criticism.
Noble morality good (courage/physical-mental strength/pride)/bad (lack, inferior, non-noble, not to blame) (altruism: generosity from a position of strength)
Slave morality good/evil placing positive value not on power and success and happiness but on self-denying / self-sacrificing/suffering / poor / meekness / imaginary revenge and hate /self-torture replace the suffering to others to self-suffering (to fill the same pleasure, to satisfy their need for sense of power)

#Marx: #economic (need) work & creativity is the objective manifesto (alienation of labour or morals)
Social bourgeois/: morality serve as mask for class interests: legitimise existing society and its class structure: obey law / hard work/ preserve private proprietary/ moderate demand => for comment good (good for the dominant class)

#Freud: #sexual (need) arousal (can be channelled to cultural/spiritual/intellectual)
Super-ego: forbidding / guilty when performing some action: internalisation of external authority. Needed for social and self-control: else our natural aggressive instinct will make social life impossible Internal authority build from childhood by parent educating him against his feeling (frustration, but submit to gain their love) => it’s a necessary illusion (excess or lack of self-control lead to illness)

#G.E.Moor: Naturalistic fallacy #intuitionist
Good (non-natural) cannot be defined: we know it when encounter it (like property yellow but that is natural)
It’s wrong to define Good = willed by god #Kant, sum of pleasure #utilitarian, human need #Marx …
One’s good is defined (beautiful) all is self-evident after #intuitionist
#B.Russell: So-called values are not an independently existing feature of the world but rather it’s an expression of our own state of mind (moral are not knowledge #emotivism)
#Stevenson Language evoke: feelings, emotions, altitude => a social instrument to influence people #manipulation #propaganda (no moral we switched to study the manipulative act embedded in language)
#Wittgenstein: the meaning of a word is its use in the language
#Hare language is #action-guiding: what we shall do: everybody is #free to form his moral

#Nozick: moral right (life/speech/property/body): solve the issue of self-sacrifice #utilitarian for overall happiness of population #Political Philosophy
Limit what you can do to others to pursuit your aim: human beings are ends not merely means
Only the minimal state, whose role is limited to protecting people's rights, can be justified. Any more extensive state would itself violate people's rights
Limited to negative-right, no positive right like: jobs/healthcare/education

#R.Dworkin democracy is best way to identify and to implement utilitarian policy + priority to political right and how we build those rights?

#J.Rawls #D.Gauthier #contractarian if moral build with “veil of ignorance” people: it will be just & equalitarian (else they will maximize gain for their position in the sociality)
Problem we can’t start by pre-moral pre-society also there is no “veil of ignorance”
Contract you want to belong or not to a society and there existing morals

#B.Williams Agent-Centred Ethics: keeping one's hand clean
Commitment: it’s not about happiness or unhappiness: it’s deeper ( not kill / vegetarian … )

#A.MacIntyre Virtue Ethics good human life from within tradition (modern life people they don’t share tradition, so they will never agree on morals)

#T.Nagel Moral Pluralism makes rules that combine right/utilitarianism/social/… and solve the conflicts

#Realism/anti-Realism: is there a moral believe? (Yes/No)
#Mackie is embedded in the language #anti-Realism
#Realism #externalist: open question should we follow the morals?
D.Brink our believe will be free floating without experience #foundationalism (experience construct foundation from where all derive)
Realism #externalist #Coherentism a true is so if it’s coherent with all our believe
Realism #externalist McNaughton moral are just believe no need to act but it’s reason to act, additional desire are needed for action
Moral are built by experience & seeing (Moral vision) or by telling moral story or fable (lead by story or seeing: like story of King David & Uriah) it build meaning & understanding (through our life/experience): it’s an attempt to make sense of the world (everybody is unique)

[Joel Olsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intressant men blev lite förvirrad av sista kapitlet, flöt mycket iväg i min egna tankar. Lite svårt att säga vad jag helt tycker. Men överlag en bra introduktion men skulle kunna säkert förbättras om det var lite längre då det känns som att fler viktiga filosofers röster inte hördes. Sedan kan man ju inte få med alla heller.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty good review of different people's ideas about the direction of morality or moral thought. The author gives his take and refutes many of the positions he covers, more so than most philosophical authors. But that's okay, it is a good book to read any how.

[Nic · Rating 1 out of 5]

More like an introduction to nonsense. The author presents the ideas of other philosophers well enough, but his own thinking is truly terrible.

[Nelia]

Read for uni ✨

[Ginan Aulia Rahman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kalau nemu buku ini dari semester awal, saya bakal jago banget soal etika. Mudah dibaca dan dipahami, lalu tidak melewatkan poin-poin penting dari pemikiran filsuf moral.