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Absolute Goodness: In Defence of the Useless and Immoral

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Notes

  1. See Richard Kraut, Against Absolute Goodness (Oxford: OUP, 2011), pp. 4ff.

  2. See Kraut, op. cit., ch. 1.

  3. See Christine Korsgaard, "On Having a Good", http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~korsgaar/CMK.HG.pdf [accessed 12/07/2014]. Thanks to John Hacker-Wright for bringing this to my attention.

  4. See Kraut, op. cit., p. 7.

  5. See John Milton, "On the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce" in Kermode (ed.), The Major Works (Oxford: Classics, 2008); Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: OUP, 1999), ch. 11.

  6. See John McDowell, "Eudaimonism and Realism in Aristotle’s Ethics" in his The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2009), esp. p. 33.

  7. See G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903), §60, p. 153.

  8. See Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (Oxford: OUP, 1958), p. 81.

  9. See Korsgaard, op. cit.

  10. See Kraut, op. cit. p. 8

  11. See Raimond Gaita, Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 93ff.

  12. See Marina Barabas, "In Search of Goodness" in Christopher Cordner (ed.), Philosophy, Ethics, and a Common Humanity: Essays in Honour of Raimond Gaita (London: Routledge, 2011).

  13. See Gaita op. cit., Preface.

  14. Kraut, op. cit., p. 46.

  15. Ibid., p. 60, emphasis mine.

  16. Ibid., p. 89, emphasis mine.

  17. Ibid., p. 88.

  18. Ibid., pp. 27ff. Here I part company with Stroud’s interpretation of Kraut’s methodology; cf. Stroud, S. (2013). "‘Good For' supra ‘Good’," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87(2):459–466, esp. pp. 459–462.

  19. Kraut, op. cit., p. 85.

  20. Simone Weil, First and Last Notebooks (Oxford: OUP, 1970), p. 79.

  21. Ibid., p. 213.

  22. Thanks to John Hacker-Wright for suggesting this example.

  23. Roger Crisp "In Defence of Absolute Goodness" Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 87(2):476–482, (2013) esp. pp. 480–482.

  24. Ibid., p. 481.

  25. Contrast Weil, op. cit. p. 158.

  26. See G.E.M. Anscombe, "On the Source of the Authority of the State" Ratio 20(1): 1–28; Peter Winch, "Miss Anscombe’s Moral Philosophy" in L. Alanen, S. Heinemaa and T. Wallgren (eds.), Commonality and Particularity in Ethics (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 1977).

  27. Primo Levi, If This is a Man (New York: Abacus, 1991), p. 173.

  28. Ibid., pp. 32ff.

  29. Ibid., p. 86.

  30. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Terence Irwin (trans.), Hackett Publishing, 1999), 1115a30–b19.

  31. See Gaita, op. cit. pp. xvii–xix

  32. Raimond Gaita, A Common Humanity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 222ff.

  33. Raimond Gaita, After Romulus (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2011), ch. 1.

  34. Levi, op. cit., p. 125.

  35. Ibid., p. 127.

  36. Ibid., pp. 127–128.

  37. See Peter Winch, "Who is My Neighbour" in his Trying to Make Sense (London: Basil Blackwell, 1987).

  38. See Luke 17:21.

  39. See Raimond Gaita, "Justice and Hope" in D. Modjeska (ed.), The Best Australian Essays 2006 (Melbourne: Black Inc., 2006).

  40. See Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Cambridge: CUP, 2006), esp. ‘Problem III’.

  41. An expression which both Gaita and Kraut make use of in their characterisation of absolute value; see Gaita, 2004, op. cit., p. 189; Kraut, op. cit., p. 89.

  42. R.F. Holland, Against Empiricism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), p. 2.

  43. I would like to thank Luke Brunning, Richard Kraut and in particular the editor and anonymous reviewer of the journal for their helpful comments on a previous version of this essay.

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  1. Department of Ethics, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Yoshida Honmachi, Sakyo-Ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Michael Campbell

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Campbell, M. Absolute Goodness: In Defence of the Useless and Immoral. J Value Inquiry 49, 95–112 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-014-9444-y

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