John Kekes
Biographic Data
| ID | 461305 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John Kekes |
| GIVEN NAMES | John |
| FAMILY NAME | Kekes |
| SIGNATURE | KEKES J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University at Albany, State University of New York |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 49 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1966 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Moderate Conservatism
Moderate Conservatism is a response to the alarming state of politics in America. It is a reasoned moderate account of the primary political values of the rule of law, justice, liberty, equality, and property, a criticism of extremist accounts of them, a defense of our 300-year-old constitutional democracy, and a criticism of all forms of political extremism. The American political system has endured because the Constitution has guided the balanc…
Moral Tradition and Individuality
Pluralism in Philosophy
This original and ambitious book aims to change how we think about good lives. The perennial debates about good lives-the disagreements caused by conflicts between scientific, religious, moral, historical, aesthetic, and subjective modes of reflection-typically end in an impasse. This leaves the underlying problems of the meaning of life, the possibility of free action, the place of morality in good lives, the art of life, and human self-understa…
Enjoyment
The book examines the indispensable role enjoyment plays in a good life. The key to it is the development of a style of life that combines an attitude and a manner of living and acting that jointly express one's deepest concerns. Since such styles vary with characters and circumstances, understanding them requires attending to the particular and concrete details of individual lives. The first half of the book explains and illustrates these compon…
Reply to Critics
Research Article| January 01 2006 Reply to Critics John Kekes John Kekes Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2006) 15 (2): 30–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/25702816 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation John Kekes; Reply to Critics. The Good Society 1 January 2006; 15 (2): 30–34. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/25702816 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib …
On the Supposed Obligation to Relieve Famine
In an influential paper, Peter Singer claims that affluent people have a strong obligation to relieve famine. If they fail, they allow others to die, and makes them murderers. In responding to this outrageous claim, which has given uneasy conscience to many, I show that Singer is engaged in indefensible moralizing that substitutes bullying for reasoned argument and gives a bad name to morality.
A Case for Conservatism
In his recent book Against Liberalism, philosopher John Kekes argued that liberalism as a political system is doomed to failure by its internal inconsistencies. In this companion volume, he makes a compelling case for conservatism as the best alternative. His is the first systematic description and defense of the basic assumptions underlying conservative thought.Conservatism, Kekes maintains, is concerned with the political arrangements that enab…
Liberal Double-Mindedness
Double-mindedness is best understood in contrast with single mindedness. To be single-minded is to have a strong enough motive to override any other motive that may conflict with it. To be doubleminded is to have two strong motives that exist in a state of tension because acting on one excludes acting on the other. The agents feel the strength of both motives, but neither obviously overrides the other. Consequently they waver, they are ambivalent…
The Meaning of Life
Against Liberalism
The Nature of Philosophy
A Philosopher Challenges Liberal Egalitarianism
A Question for Egalitarians
Moral Wisdom and Good Lives
He discusses these inner processes through the tragedies of Sophocles, which can inspire us with their enduring moral significance and help us to understand the importance of moral wisdom to living a good life.
The Morality of Pluralism
The Morality of Pluralism
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access The Morality of Pluralism. By John Kekes. (Princeton UP, 1993. Pp. 227. Price £21.00.) David Archard David Archard University of Ulster atjordanstown Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 45, Issue 180, July 1995, Pages 400–403, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219668 Published: 01 July 1995
Pluralism and the Value of Life
As an initial approximation, pluralism may be understood as the combination of four theses. First, there are many incommensurable values whose realization is required for living a good life. Second, these values often conflict with each other, and, as a result, the realization of some excludes the realization of others. Third, there is no authoritative standard that could be appealed to to resolve such conflicts, because there is also a plurality…
Rescher on Rationality and Morality
The Pragmatic Idealism of Nicholas Rescher
In the first volume of the trilogy, Rescher concentrates on knowledge from the combined points of view of idealism and evolutionary epistemology; in the second volume, he offers a deontological account and justification of values; and in the third volume, he develops a metaphilosophical position, perspectival pluralism, that makes possible the systematization and justification of our claims about knowledge and values. Rescher's approach to presen…
The Morality of Pluralism
Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornography, AIDS, and similar issues naturally lead to the question of whether there are any values that can be ultimately justified, or whether values are simply conventional. John Kekes argues that the present moral and political uncertainties are due to a deep change in our society from a dogmatic to a pluralistic view of values. Dogmatism is committed to there being only one justifiable system o…
Pluralism and conflict in morality
Books in review
Fallen Freedom
Book Reviews Fallen Freedom: Kant on Radical Evil and Moral Regeneration. By Gordon E. Michalson, J R . (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Pp. xii + 168. Price £25.00.) Mary Midgley Mary Midgley Newcastle Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 42, Issue 166, January 1992, Pages 114–118, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220460 Published: 01 January 1992
The Examined Life
Moral Depth
Few would disagree that depth is an admirable, highly desirable, and yet rare quality. One would expect to find, therefore, that much has been written on the subject. But this is not so. Perhaps the topic appears forbidding, because the nature of depth is itself a deep and difficult question, since it forces those who ask it to decide what is ultimately worth caring about. Be that as it may, I shall venture on to this rarely explored ground. My s…
The Informed Will and the Meaning of Life
Our lives have such meaning as we give to them. Meaning is made, not received or found; it is a human contribution to world. This contribution is possible, because the mind, as Hume observed, a great propensity to spread itself on external (Treatise, bk. I, Pt. 3, sec. I4.) When some external objects are endowed with. lasting significance for our lives, when they are transformed from indifferent facts into matters of deep concern, then we have su…
Enjoyment
The book examines the indispensable role enjoyment plays in a good life. The key to it is the development of a style of life that combines an attitude and a manner of living and acting that jointly express one's deepest concerns. Since such styles vary with characters and circumstances, understanding them requires attending to the particular and concrete details of individual lives. The first half of the book explains and illustrates these compon…
Physicalism, the Identity Theory, and the Doctrine of Emergence
I Physicalism, and the weak identity theory deny, while physicalism 2 and the radical identity theory assert, that raw feels can be accomodated in a purely physicalistic framework. II A way of interpreting the claim of physicalism 1 is that raw feels are emergents. III The doctrine of emergence asserts that: (i) there are different levels of existence, (ii) these levels of existence are distinguishable on the basis of the behaviour of entities of…
The Meaning of Life
Ought Implies Can' and Two Kinds of Morality
Rationality and Problem- Solving
A Justification of Rationality
Towards a Theory of Rationality
The Pragmatic Idealism of Nicholas Rescher
In the first volume of the trilogy, Rescher concentrates on knowledge from the combined points of view of idealism and evolutionary epistemology; in the second volume, he offers a deontological account and justification of values; and in the third volume, he develops a metaphilosophical position, perspectival pluralism, that makes possible the systematization and justification of our claims about knowledge and values. Rescher's approach to presen…
Moral Sensitivity
Most contemporary philosophers accept Kant's view1 that the central question of morality is what ought I to do. This gives choice a pivotal role, for choice is what one faces when the question has to be answered. Since what is chosen is an action, this view of morality—I shall call it the current view —is action-orientated. And since actions are directed towards people, the current view stresses altruism and universalizability. Morality is thus s…
Rationality and the Social Sciences
Physicalism and Subjectivity
The Case for Scepticism
Journal Article The Case For Scepticism Get access John Kekes John Kekes State University of New York at Albany Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 25, Issue 98, January 1975, Pages 28–39, https://doi.org/10.2307/2217950 Published: 01 January 1975
Towards a Theory of Rationality
Physicalism, the Identity Theory, and the Doctrine of Emergence
I Physicalism, and the weak identity theory deny, while physicalism 2 and the radical identity theory assert, that raw feels can be accomodated in a purely physicalistic framework. II A way of interpreting the claim of physicalism 1 is that raw feels are emergents. III The doctrine of emergence asserts that: (i) there are different levels of existence, (ii) these levels of existence are distinguishable on the basis of the behaviour of entities of…
Skepticism and External Questions
Towards a Theory of Rationality
Towards a Theory of Rationality
The Existence of Propositions
Logical Dualism
The Case for Scepticism
Journal Article The Case For Scepticism Get access John Kekes John Kekes State University of New York at Albany Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 25, Issue 98, January 1975, Pages 28–39, https://doi.org/10.2307/2217950 Published: 01 January 1975
Rationality and Problem- Solving
Physicalism and Subjectivity
A Justification of Rationality
Treatise on Basic Philosophy, Vols. I-II
Essays on Explanation and Understanding
Rationality and the Social Sciences—A Reply to Benn and Mortimore
Rationality and the Social Sciences
Dialectics
Morality and altruism
The Nature of Philosophy
The problem of good
Moral Sensitivity
Most contemporary philosophers accept Kant's view1 that the central question of morality is what ought I to do. This gives choice a pivotal role, for choice is what one faces when the question has to be answered. Since what is chosen is an action, this view of morality—I shall call it the current view —is action-orientated. And since actions are directed towards people, the current view stresses altruism and universalizability. Morality is thus s…
Ought Implies Can' and Two Kinds of Morality
The Informed Will and the Meaning of Life
Our lives have such meaning as we give to them. Meaning is made, not received or found; it is a human contribution to world. This contribution is possible, because the mind, as Hume observed, a great propensity to spread itself on external (Treatise, bk. I, Pt. 3, sec. I4.) When some external objects are endowed with. lasting significance for our lives, when they are transformed from indifferent facts into matters of deep concern, then we have su…
Benevolence
Morality requires us to act for the good of others. This is not the only moral requirement there is, and it is, of course, controversial where the good of others lies. But whatever their good is, there can be no serious doubt that acting so as to bring it about is one crucial obligation morality places on us. Yet the nature of this obligation is unclear, because there are difficult questions about its aim and about the motivational sources requir…
The moral importance of ceremony
What Makes Lives Good
The goodness of lives may be thought to depend on the personal satisfaction they provide or on the moral merit they possess. I shall call lives good only if they are both personally satisfying and have moral merit. Thinking of good lives in this way requires understanding the relation between their good-making components.' One possibility is that they are quite unrelated aspects of particular lives. But I find this implausible; because it is not …
Moral Depth
Few would disagree that depth is an admirable, highly desirable, and yet rare quality. One would expect to find, therefore, that much has been written on the subject. But this is not so. Perhaps the topic appears forbidding, because the nature of depth is itself a deep and difficult question, since it forces those who ask it to decide what is ultimately worth caring about. Be that as it may, I shall venture on to this rarely explored ground. My s…
Philosophy (41 works) · Epistemology (39 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Philosophy (22 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (17 works) · Political science (15 works) · Morality (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Law (11 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (11 works)