The geography of morals : varieties of moral possibility / Owen Flanagan.

Author
Flanagan, Owen, Jr., 1949- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2017]
Description
x, 362 pages ; 25 cm

Availability

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Firestone Library - Stacks BJ45 .F529 2017 Browse related items Request

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    Summary note
    "We live in multicultural, cosmopolitan worlds. These worlds are distinctive moral ecologies in which people enact and embody different lived philosophies and conceive of mind, morals, and the meaning of life differently from the typical WEIRD -- Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic -- person. This is not a predicament; it is an opportunity. Many think that cross cultural understanding is useful for developing a modus vivendi where people from different worlds are not at each other's throats and tolerate each other. Flanagan presses the much more exciting possibility that cross-cultural philosophy provides opportunities for exploring the varieties of moral possibility, learning from other traditions, and for self, social, and political improvement. There are ways of worldmaking in other living traditions -- Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, Amerindian, and African -- that citizens in Western countries can benefit from. Cross-cultural learning is protection against what Alasdair MacIntyre refers to as being 'imprisoned by one's upbringing.' Flanagan takes up perennial topics of whether there is anything to the idea of a common human nature, psychobiological sources of human morality, the nature of the self, the role of moral excellence in a good human life, and whether and how empirical inquiry into morality can contribute to normative ethics. The Geography of Morals exemplifies how one can respectfully conceive of multiculturalism and global interaction as providing not only opportunities for business and commerce, but also opportunities for socio-moral and political improvement on all sides. This is a book that aims to change how normative ethics and moral psychology are done"--Provided by publisher's website.
    Bibliographic references
    Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-349) and index.
    Contents
    • On being 'imprisoned by one's upbringing'
    • Moral psychologies and moral ecologies
    • Classical Chinese sprouts
    • Modern moral psychology
    • Beyond moral modularity
    • Destructive emotions
    • When values collide : pidgins, creoles, and smashdowns
    • Moral geographies of anger
    • Weird anger
    • For love's and justice's sake : the attachment, injustice, and catharsis defenses
    • Self-variations: philosophical archaeologies
    • The content of character.
    ISBN
    • 9780190212155 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
    • 0190212152 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
    LCCN
    2016006133
    OCLC
    947145166
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