Does empathy help us to be moral? The author argues that empathy is often instrumental to meeting the demands of morality as defined by various ethical theories. This multi-faceted work links psychological research on empathy with ethical theory and contemporary trends in moral education.
Dimensions of Moral Agency addresses and exemplifies the multi-dimensionality of modern moral philosophy. The book is a collection of papers originally presented at the Northwest Philosophy Conference in October 2013. The papers encompass a wide variety of topics within moral philosophy, including metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics, and broadly fall within the areas of the nature of moral agency and moral agency as it is played out in particular aspects of people’s lived experiences. The papers include assessments of the contributions of historical figures, such as Aristotle, Epictetus, Confucius, Berkeley, and Descartes, as well as analyses of agency as it relates to individual and social moral issues like mental illness, the ethics of debt, prostitution, eco-consumerism, oppression, and species egalitarianism, among others. Also covered are concerns related to the nature of moral reasoning at the individual and social level, the relevance of love and emotion to moral agency, and moral responsibility and efficacy. Interwoven with these topics and issues are concerns related to what sorts of things are, or could be, moral agents and what constitutes a moral good; the possibility of the existence of moral knowledge or moral facts or moral truth; and what constitutes moral motivation and how that is, or is not, related to questions of moral justification.
The Dimensions of Ethics offers a concise but wide-ranging introduction to moral philosophy. In clear and engaging fashion, the author first examines the scope of ethical theory, and explores central metaethical questions such as the issue of relativism, and the relationship between morality and religion. He then turns to an exploration of five theoretical approaches (utilitarianism, the deontological approach of Kant, the ethical pluralism of Ross, virtue ethics, and feminist ethics), in each case providing a consideration of various objections that have been advanced as well as a sympathetic exposition of the core principles of each approach. Throughout he uses a wide range of examples, and integrates references to issues in applied ethics with his discussions of ethical theory.
In The Moral Dimensions of Human Rights, Carl Wellman takes a broad approach to human rights by discussing all three types - moral, international, and national -at length. At the same time, Wellman pays special attention to the moral reasons that are relevant to each kind of human rights.
The essays in this volume open up reflection on the implications of social inequality for theorizing about moral responsibility. Collectively, they focus attention on the relevance of the social context, and of structural and epistemic injustice, stereotyping and implicit bias, for critically analyzing our moral responsibility practices.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The acclaimed social psychologist challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike—a “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review). Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns. In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.
Moral Theory: An Introduction explores some of the most historically important and currently debated moral theories about the nature of the right and good. Providing an introduction to moral theory that explains and critically examines the theories of such classical moral philosophers as Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Bentham, Mill, and Ross, this book acquaints students with the work of contemporary moral philosophers. All of the book's chapters have been revised in light of recent work in moral theory. The second edition includes a new chapter on ethical egoism, an extensively revised chapter on moral particularism, and expanded coverage of divine command theory, moral relativism, and consequentialism. Additionally, this edition discusses recent work by moral psychologists that is making an impact on moral theory.
This anthology offers a unique collection of contributions focusing on the discussion about the so-called dual-process theories within the field of moral psychology. In general, dual-process theories state that in cognitive systems, two sorts of processes can be differentiated: an affective, associative process and an analytical, rule-based process. This distinction recently entered the debate on the relationship between intuitive and rational approaches to explaining the phenomenon of moral judgment. The increasing interest in these theories raises questions concerning their general impact on social contexts. The anthology aims at presenting stepping-stones of an analysis of the merits and drawbacks of this development. For that purpose, the authors discuss general questions concerning the relationship between ethics and empirical sciences, methodological questions, reassessments of established terminology and societal implications of dual-process theories in moral psychology.