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 8
... cultural avant-garde, has quite rightly been regarded as the laboratory for every sort of liberal experiment. America is the first universal nation (to use Ben Wattenberg's phrase), cut loose from all the local patriotisms and blood-and ...
... cultural avant-garde, has quite rightly been regarded as the laboratory for every sort of liberal experiment. America is the first universal nation (to use Ben Wattenberg's phrase), cut loose from all the local patriotisms and blood-and ...
Page 21
... cultures from which the aliens come, the stranger has few rights, and, whatever their national laws say about such things, villagers may think they can rob or kill the stranger with impunity. However, contempt for strangers is not ...
... cultures from which the aliens come, the stranger has few rights, and, whatever their national laws say about such things, villagers may think they can rob or kill the stranger with impunity. However, contempt for strangers is not ...
Page 46
... cultural and legal traditions, Roman law, which was further codified and rationalized in the reigns of Theo- dosius and Justinian, was available to all citizens of the empire. Citizens of the World 47 Odovacer deposed the last “. 3 ...
... cultural and legal traditions, Roman law, which was further codified and rationalized in the reigns of Theo- dosius and Justinian, was available to all citizens of the empire. Citizens of the World 47 Odovacer deposed the last “. 3 ...
Page 53
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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