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 7
... ethical tradition, which, for the sake of convenience, I am calling liber- alism. Although liberalism in recent decades usually signifies the milder forms of state socialism, and conservatism is used to refer to the ideol- ogy of ...
... ethical tradition, which, for the sake of convenience, I am calling liber- alism. Although liberalism in recent decades usually signifies the milder forms of state socialism, and conservatism is used to refer to the ideol- ogy of ...
Page 10
... ethical discussion whose practitioners have included Aristotle , Cicero , and St. Thomas , as well as such prominent Protestant theologians as Jeremy Taylor and Richard Baxter . A genuine casuistry is based on two principles : first ...
... ethical discussion whose practitioners have included Aristotle , Cicero , and St. Thomas , as well as such prominent Protestant theologians as Jeremy Taylor and Richard Baxter . A genuine casuistry is based on two principles : first ...
Page 11
... ethical calculus could be devised from a few simple axioms, and, as a corollary, they have tended to reduce the complexities of human life to abstract formu- las that override such everyday facts of life as kinship and friendship ...
... ethical calculus could be devised from a few simple axioms, and, as a corollary, they have tended to reduce the complexities of human life to abstract formu- las that override such everyday facts of life as kinship and friendship ...
Page 29
... ethical and legal aspects of Bad Samaritanism , and the arguments , however subtle and complex , gener- ally amount to no more than either the old liberal or new liberal under- standing of liberty . Beginning with the assumption that ...
... ethical and legal aspects of Bad Samaritanism , and the arguments , however subtle and complex , gener- ally amount to no more than either the old liberal or new liberal under- standing of liberty . Beginning with the assumption that ...
Page 30
... ethical flavor of the week for which she has a craving . Viewed from the perspective of actual nursing mothers , both selfish individualism and altruism must appear like so many discarded nurs- ery toys — children's carpentry tools or ...
... ethical flavor of the week for which she has a craving . Viewed from the perspective of actual nursing mothers , both selfish individualism and altruism must appear like so many discarded nurs- ery toys — children's carpentry tools or ...
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