1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910496148403321

Autore

Harris George W.

Titolo

Agent-centered morality : an Aristotelian alternative to Kantian internalism / / George W. Harris

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, CA : , : University of California Press, , [1999]

©1999

ISBN

0-520-92222-0

0-585-27709-5

Edizione

[Reprint 2019]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xi, 434 p. )

Disciplina

171/.3

Soggetti

Ethics

Agent (Philosophy)

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 419-426) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. The Internalism Requirement and the Integration Test -- 2. Impartiality, Regulative Norms, and Practical Reason -- 3. The Thin Conception of Integrity and the Integration Test -- 4. An Integrity-Sensitive Conception of Human Agency, Practical Reason, and Morality -- 5. General Features and Varieties of Respect -- 6. Respect, Egoism, and Self-Assessment -- 7. The Categorical Value of the Goods of Respect -- 8. General Features of Love -- 9. The Normative Thoughts of Parental Love, Part I. -- 10. The Normative Thoughts of Parental Love, Part II. -- 11. Peer Love -- 12. The Normative Thoughts of Friendship -- 13. The Normative Thoughts of Neighborly Love, Part I. -- 14. The Normative Thoughts of Neighborly Love, Part II. -- 15. Loneliness, Intimacy, and the Integration Test -- 16. Solitary Activities -- 17. Shared Activities -- 18. Normative Thoughts and the Goods of Activity -- Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

What kinds of persons do we aspire to be, and how do our aspirations fit with our ideas of rationality? In Agent-Centered Morality, George Harris argues that most of us aspire to a certain sort of integrity: We wish to be respectful of and sympathetic to others, and to be loving parents, friends, and members of our communities. Against a prevailing Kantian consensus, Harris offers an Aristotelian view of the



problems presented by practical reason, problems of integrating all our concerns into a coherent, meaningful life in a way that preserves our integrity. The task of solving these problems is "the integration test."    Systematically addressing the work of major Kantian thinkers, Harris shows that even the most advanced contemporary versions of the Kantian view fail to integrate all of the values that correspond to what we call a moral life. By demonstrating how the meaning of life and practical reason are internally related, he constructs from Aristotle's thought a conceptual scheme that successfully integrates all the characteristics that make a life meaningful, without jeopardizing the place of any. Harris's elucidation of this approach is a major contribution to debates on human agency, practical reason, and morality.