The Morality of Everyday Life: Rediscovering an Ancient Alternative to the Liberal TraditionFleming offers an alternative to enlightened liberalism, where moral and political problems are looked at from an objective point of view and a decision made from a distant perspective that is both rational and universally applied to all comparable cases. He instead places importance on the particular, the local, and moral complexity, advocating a return to premodern traditions for a solution to ethical predicaments. In his view, liberalism and postmodernism ignore the fact that human beings by their very nature refuse to live in a world of abstractions where the attachments of friends, neighbors, family, and country make no difference. Fleming believes that a modern type of "casuistry" should be applied to moral conflicts, using examples from history, literature, and religion to explain this moral ecology that refuses to divorce organisms from their interactions with each other and with their environment. |
From inside the book
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Page 2
... authority, his vengeance upon Claudius would be only rough justice, especially since it has been commanded by the ghost of his father, the last real king of Denmark. In fact, one of Hamlet's primary concerns is theological: His father ...
... authority, his vengeance upon Claudius would be only rough justice, especially since it has been commanded by the ghost of his father, the last real king of Denmark. In fact, one of Hamlet's primary concerns is theological: His father ...
Page 12
... authorities. The law, after all, makes no exception for friendship. Huck is asked to assist in a search for runaway slaves, and, after dishonestly promising to help, he returns to the raft “feeling bad and low, because I knowed very ...
... authorities. The law, after all, makes no exception for friendship. Huck is asked to assist in a search for runaway slaves, and, after dishonestly promising to help, he returns to the raft “feeling bad and low, because I knowed very ...
Page 31
... authority override our own refusal? It may be possible to find answers to these and other questions, even to arrange a workable compromise between the general principle of universal obligation and the exigen- cies of everyday life, but ...
... authority override our own refusal? It may be possible to find answers to these and other questions, even to arrange a workable compromise between the general principle of universal obligation and the exigen- cies of everyday life, but ...
Page 43
... authority beyond the tribal level, and if a member of one tribe robbed, killed, or harmed a member of another, the only recourse was war or mediation. Moral obligation, even on this basic level, did not extend beyond the tribe. This ...
... authority beyond the tribal level, and if a member of one tribe robbed, killed, or harmed a member of another, the only recourse was war or mediation. Moral obligation, even on this basic level, did not extend beyond the tribe. This ...
Page 49
... authority or significance of the nation-states to which they ministered and for whose rulers they regularly prayed. The Orthodox churches, which are both universal and national, have played an important part in the national 50 The ...
... authority or significance of the nation-states to which they ministered and for whose rulers they regularly prayed. The Orthodox churches, which are both universal and national, have played an important part in the national 50 The ...
Contents
1 | |
18 | |
42 | |
Too Much Reality | 69 |
Growing Up Unabsurd | 95 |
Problems of Perspective | 135 |
The Myth of Individualism | 167 |
Goodbye Old Rights of Man | 194 |
Bibliography | 235 |
Index | 251 |
Other editions - View all
The Morality of Everyday Life: Rediscovering an Ancient Alternative to the ... Thomas Fleming No preview available - 2004 |
The Morality of Everyday Life: Rediscovering an Ancient Alternative to the ... Thomas Fleming No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
abstract Alasdair MacIntyre American ancient Antigone argued argument Aristotle Athenian Carol Gilligan casuistry Catholic century charity child Christian Church citizens civil claims common concept Creon cultural depends Descartes divine duty ethical European evil example fact father feel French friends friendship G. K. Chesterton global Goodbye Greek Growing Up Unabsurd happiness hero human rights ideal identity impartial Jefferson Jews John Johnson justice justify killed Kohlberg Kosovo language Lawrence Kohlberg liberal liberty live loyalty ment modern moral development Morality of Everyday mother Myth of Individualism nation-state nationalist natural neighbor Neoptolemus object obligation Old Rights one’s parents patriotism person Philoctetes philosophers Plato Plutarch political poor principle Problems of Perspective question reality reason regard religion religious responsibility Roman rules Samuel Johnson sense Serbs social society Stoic story strangers theory things Thomas tion tradition University Press virtue Voltaire women