Truth and Normativity: an Inquiry into the Basis of Everyday Moral Claims
First Statement of Responsibility
Iain Brassington.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.
Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Ashgate
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2007
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
vi, 186 p.
SERIES
Series Title
Ashgate new critical thinking in philosophy
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
E.BooK: 25113
Text of Note
Beginning by posing the question of what it is that marks the difference between something like terrorism and something like civil society, Brassington argues that commonsense moral arguments against terrorism or political violence tend to imply that the modern democratic polis might also be morally unjustifiable. At the same time, the commonsense arguments in favour of something like a modern democratic polis could be co-opted by the politically violent as exculpatory. In exploring this prima facie problem and in the course of trying to substantiate the commonsense distinction, Brassington identifies a tension between the primary values of truth and normativity in the standard accounts of moral theory which he ultimately resolves by adopting lines of thought suggested by Martin Heidegger and concluding that the problem with mainstream moral philosophy is that, in a sense, it tries too hard.
INTERNAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES/INDEXES NOTE
Text of Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [177]-184) and index.
CONTENTS NOTE
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"There are no innocents" : why we should be worried about moral philosophy. Making moral arguments ; The moral terrorist? ; Other terrorists ; Terrorism and the democratic state : unelected affinities ; The ship of state and its galley slaves ; The blurred borders ; Opening the question -- Independentism : moral truth and the lack thereof. Independentism and dependentism ; Realist independentism ; Realist independentism and queer science ; The rejection of realist independentism ; Idealist independentism : Kant and his heirs ; The importance of the will ; The problem of formalism ; The metaphysics of reason and the problem of taxonomy ; Reason and the moral will ; Independentism and commonsense morality -- Dependentism : buying truth and pawning normativity. If you know what's good for you : eudaimonism ; Souls, naturally ; Cosmology as a moral tool ; In defence of politics ; Eudaimonism, cosmology and essentialism ; Moral feelings ; Instrumentalism and the a priori ; Morality and the snark -- The reality of values : Heidegger and moral thought. Morality and commonsense ; Heidegger versus morality? ; Truth and reality in moral statements ; How to philosophise (with) a hammer ; Appearance and values ; Categorisation and apophansis ; Problems with the account ; Truth and the possibility of moral error ; The embeddedness of norms ; The problem of caprice ; Publicity, commonsense and critique -- Oughtobiography : Heidegger and ethical thought. Agency and Dasein : the break from Descartes ; Writing about ethics ; Pondering the abode : authenticity and finitude ; Pondering the abode : ethics and infinity ; Morality and authenticity : the problem of Nazi virtues ; Ethics and krisis ; Self, world and other ; Democracy, terrorism and existence ; What is wrong with terrorism(?)