Online research in philosophy

My tribute to R. F. Holland focuses on what he calls “absolute goodness.” I try to explain what he means by it and how it connects with the common belief that moral absolutism entails that some acts must not be done “whatever the consequences.” I argue that Holland believes that this sense of absolute value should be understood in the light of a conception of the kind he develops of absolute goodness; that he is right to believe that “absolute ethics” (...) (his expression) conflicts with the nature of politics, but that he is wrong to believe that consequentialism is the ethics of politics. Holland believes that it is important to an adequate discussion of absolute ethics and politics to acknowledge that there are things a saints would find morally impossible to do. I defend him against the charger that this begs all the important questions, and I argue further that it is important to understand, even when thinking about politics, that there are things that only a saint could do. (shrink)

Abstract I distinguish what I call ?minimal narrative? from narrative of the kind that might disclose a person's identity in biography or autobiography. The latter exists in what I call ?the realm of meaning?; a realm in which, in ways I try to make clear, form and content cannot be separated. The realm of meaning is also the realm in which we develop an understanding of what it means to lead a human life lucidly responsive to the defining facts of (...) the human condition and, interdependently with that, our sense of what it means to wrong someone. To show to what degree assumptions about the realm of meaning set the stage for our understanding of what it is to wrong someone, of the nature of biography and autobiography and of what it is to learn morally from someone's example, I detail the conceptual structure of a certain kind of racist perception. The racist's distinction between ?us? and ?them?, is essentially the distinction between lives that are lived in the realm of meaning and lives that are not. Much of moral philosophy, I argue, takes as it starting point a perception of human life that is little different from the racist's perception of the lives of those whom he regards as less than fully human. (shrink)

Powerful and timely, A Common Humanity asks why the language of morality has failed us. Drawing on examples of the Holocaust, the David Irving affair, the case of Mary Bell and the treatment of the Aborigines in Australia, Raimond Gaita challenges our received thinking about evil in this provocative exploration of what makes an ethical society.

Written by eminent philosophers from Britain, Europe, America, and Australia, the essays of this collection are a tribute to Peter Winch, whose work is marked by his deep appreciation of the most fundamental aspect of Wittgenstein's legacy: that we cannot detach our concepts from their roots in human life. The voices in this volume unite in different tones of sympathy and criticism by discussing the theme of human conditioning: the human conditioning of what we can find intelligible, possible and impossible, (...) and the suspicion of an illusory transcendence. (shrink)

Maclntyre's ?disquieting suggestion? concerning the apparently irretrievably anarchic state of contemporary moral discourse begs the crucial questions in any argument over the notion of ?incoherence? in moral thought and practice. Thus his attempt to establish the canonical authority of Aristotelianism fails. Nonetheless, the attempt to reconstruct a plausible Aristotelianism is of independent interest. Maclntyre introduces the quasi?technical notion of a ?practice? to locate a non?reductive teleology of the virtues. Though certain teleological expressions come naturally in a deepened understanding of the (...) place of the virtues in a human life, they will not, at crucial points, bear the philosophically motivated teleological emphasis that Maclntyre places on them. This emphasis is a mistaken reaction to the inadequacies of expressions like ?intrinsic? and ?for its own sake?, as often used by philosophers who argue against teleological construals of morality. It is also prompted by the mistaken belief that it is required to reveal the connection between morality and a person's good. For a non?reductive construal of that connection we must focus on the meaning of action and of a life. This is in accord with some things Aristotle said. It is not in easy accord with the claim that moral judgments are factual or truth?valued, nor with the claim that such a concern with meaning can be discursively underwritten by showing it to be a requirement of any sound philosophy of action and of personal identity. This does not lead to what Maclntyre calls ?emotivism?, nor to ?non?cognitivism? (shrink)