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. |
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Page 3
... early, because you have to leave for work by 6 a.m. Several times a month, however, you are awakened by your neighbors, who come home late and get into a screaming match. On at least two occasions, the husband has slapped his wife ...
... early, because you have to leave for work by 6 a.m. Several times a month, however, you are awakened by your neighbors, who come home late and get into a screaming match. On at least two occasions, the husband has slapped his wife ...
Page 13
... early twentieth century . By then , the Catholic Church was already falling under the spell of a rigid neo - Thomism that was as abstract as any German school of philosophy , and Protestants had either adopted the liberal philosophy of ...
... early twentieth century . By then , the Catholic Church was already falling under the spell of a rigid neo - Thomism that was as abstract as any German school of philosophy , and Protestants had either adopted the liberal philosophy of ...
Page 23
... early Greece , and it was not rude to ask the wandering Odysseus if he was a pirate . In Athens , resident aliens did have legal status , but an alien “ could not hold any public office in Athens , nor be a juror .... He was also not ...
... early Greece , and it was not rude to ask the wandering Odysseus if he was a pirate . In Athens , resident aliens did have legal status , but an alien “ could not hold any public office in Athens , nor be a juror .... He was also not ...
Page 24
... early Rome patricians were forbidden to marry plebeians, on religious grounds: The patricians had divine blood that ought not to be contaminated. Similarly, the poems of Theognis made a sharp distinction between the social classes and ...
... early Rome patricians were forbidden to marry plebeians, on religious grounds: The patricians had divine blood that ought not to be contaminated. Similarly, the poems of Theognis made a sharp distinction between the social classes and ...
Page 35
... earliest phase, deism had been an optimistic philosophy that sought to justify the moral order of the universe with systematic meth- ods that paralleled those of Newtonian science. Leibniz's Theodicy was an elegant demonstration that ...
... earliest phase, deism had been an optimistic philosophy that sought to justify the moral order of the universe with systematic meth- ods that paralleled those of Newtonian science. Leibniz's Theodicy was an elegant demonstration that ...
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