What is the Moral Problem? NORMATIVE ETHICS VS. META-ETHICS It is a common fact of everyday life that we appraise each others' behaviour and attitudes from ...

I argue that Mencius puts forth a defensible form of ethical naturalism, according to which moral properties, moral motivation, and moral deliberation can be accounted for within the parameters of a naturalistic worldview. On this position, moral properties are the subjectively real properties which acts have in virtue of their corresponding to our most coherent set of shared desires. I give a naturalistic definition of 'right' which, I argue, is implicit in Mencius' philosophy. I address the objection that some of (...) the contemporary-sounding views which I attribute to Mencius are positions which are alien to the ancient thinker, and I argue that the version of Mencius given here is not only quite faithful to Mencius but also a true metaethical theory. (shrink)

Mencius, who lived in the 4th century B.C., is second only to Confucius in importance in the Confucian tradition. The _Mencius_ consists of sayings of Mencius and conversations he had with his contemporaries. When read side by side with the _Analects_, the _Mencius_ throws a great deal of light on the teachings of ConfuciusMencius developed many of the ideas of Confucius and at the same time discussed problems not touched upon by Confucius. He drew out the implications of Confucius' moral (...) principles and reinterpreted them for the conditions of his time. As the fullest of the four great Confucian texts, the _Mencius_ has been the required reading amongst Chinese scholars for two thousand years, and it still throws considerable light on the character of the Chinese people. (shrink)

Using path-breaking discoveries of cognitive science, Mark Johnson argues that humans are fundamentally imaginative moral animals, challenging the view that morality is simply a system of universal laws dictated by reason. According to the Western moral tradition, we make ethical decisions by applying universal laws to concrete situations. But Johnson shows how research in cognitive science undermines this view and reveals that imagination has an essential role in ethical deliberation. Expanding his innovative studies of human reason in Metaphors We Live (...) By and The Body in the Mind, Johnson provides the tools for more practical, realistic, and constructive moral reflection. (shrink)

Originally published in 1988, this book discusses if moral knowledge exists, and if so, if it is similar to other forms of knowledge. This book approaches the issues from both historical and contemporary perspectives and in order to determine whether there is a real property of rightness, looks to the ethical theories of Hobbes, Hume and Kant. This historical analysis leads to a systematic comparison of three theories of the nature of ethics: realism, emotivism and coherentism. The nature of coherence (...) is explained using legal reasoning as a model. Moral reasoning is compared and contrasted with reasoning both in science and law, showing how ethics differs from science and empirical disciplines. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan argues in this book for a more psychologically realistic ethical reflection and spells out the ways in which psychology can enrich moral philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of such "moral saints" as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Oskar Shindler, Flanagan charts a middle course between an ethics that is too realistic and socially parochial and one that is too idealistic, giving no weight to our natures.

Throughout much of Chinese history, Mencius (372-289 BC) was considered the greatest Confucian thinker after Confucius himself. Following the enshrinement of the Mencius (an edited compilation of his thought by disciples) as one of the Four Books by Sung neo-Confucianists, he was studied by all educated Chinese. This book begins a reassessment of Mencius by studying his ethical thinking in relation to that of other early Chinese thinkers, including Confucius, Mo Tzu, the Yangists, and Hsün Tzu. The author closely examines (...) his ethical concepts and terms, showing how they were used in the Mencius and other texts. (shrink)

Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age describes the formative period of Chinese culture—the last centuries of the Zhou dynasty—as an early epoch of enlightenment. It comprehensively reconstructs the ethical discourse as thought gradually became emancipated from tradition and institutions. Rather than presenting a chronology of different thinkers and works, this book discusses the systematic aspects of moral philosophies. Based on original texts, Roetz focuses on filial piety; the conflict between the family and the state; the legitimating of the political order; (...) the virtues of loyalty, friendship, and harmony; concepts of justice; the principle of humaneness and its different readings; the Golden Rule; the moral person; the autonomous self, motivation, decision and conscience; and various attempts to ground morality in religion, human nature, or reason. These topics are arranged in such a way that the genetic structure and the logical development of the moral reasoning becomes apparent. From this detached perspective, conventional morality is either rejected or critically reestablished under the restraint of new abstract and universal norms. This makes the Chinese developments part of the ancient worldwide movement of enlightenment of the axial age. (shrink)