Plural and Conflicting Values

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8107400
AutoresMichael Stocker (0000-0002-9382-3289, La Trobe University, Melbourne, autor correspondente)
Ano1992
Páginas368
Data de publicação1992-10-01
Open AccessNão
TipoBOOK
PeriódicoPlural and Conflicting Values (SOURCE_BOOK)
EditoraOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/0198240554.001.0001
OpenAlexW2038120215
Open LibraryOL19832741M
ISBN9780198240556
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas179
Referências citadas62

The central concern of this book is whether plural and incommensurable values necessarily result in unsolvable conflict and whether this conflict poses special problems for ethical theories. The view defended here is that plurality is no impediment to sound choice, and that a practicable ethics accounts for the fact that plurality and choice are ordinary and pervasive phenomena of moral life. Ethical theories, broadly divided into monistic and pluralistic, are pitted against each other in an attempt to show that the traditional understanding of the connection between value and conflict is flawed––a rationally grounded ethics does not require an evaluative monism purged of conflict, nor an algorithm to compare and choose between plural values. The book combines criticism of contemporary ethical theories with specific chapters on Aristotle's ethics. The first part focuses on the nature of moral conflict. Drawing on Aristotle's moral psychology, the author looks at dirty hands, moral immorality, and the nature of moral conflict in general. The second part focuses on whether plural values preclude sound moral judgement. The third part discusses whether conflict requires plural values, looking first at irrational conflict (akrasia or weakness of will) and next at rational conflict. The last part discusses maximization and plurality, and argues that maximization is mistaken, irrelevant, and parasitic. A central theme of the book is that ethics extends far beyond the guiding of action––‘our moral concern with acts goes beyond, primarily, what is to be done, and secondarily, what is better or best

Economic Justice · Epistemology · Immorality · Monism · Morality · Plural · Political science · Rationality · Sociology · Ethics in medical practice · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Ethics · Morale · Values · Law · Philosophy