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
... less than five hundred years.” Modern men and women, living five hundred years later, may not have to face (at least, not often) Hamlet's dilemma, but we have prob- lems enough. Suppose you are a school nurse who hears that the father ...
... less than five hundred years.” Modern men and women, living five hundred years later, may not have to face (at least, not often) Hamlet's dilemma, but we have prob- lems enough. Suppose you are a school nurse who hears that the father ...
Page 6
... less to study the real tradition of natural law, which teaches that there are specific duties attached to each sphere of life (such as motherhood or citizenship) and that a mother's first duty is to her children. There are rarely ...
... less to study the real tradition of natural law, which teaches that there are specific duties attached to each sphere of life (such as motherhood or citizenship) and that a mother's first duty is to her children. There are rarely ...
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... less to seek alternatives in the premodern traditions of, for exam- ple, classical antiquity and Judaism, partly because those traditions have themselves been misrepresented as forerunners of modern rationalism. Even the most severe ...
... less to seek alternatives in the premodern traditions of, for exam- ple, classical antiquity and Judaism, partly because those traditions have themselves been misrepresented as forerunners of modern rationalism. Even the most severe ...
Page 10
... less immoral . Catholic casuistry had its classical moment in the eighteenth century , when rigorist Jansenists contended against what they regarded as the moral laxity of the Jesuits . The compromise position , often referred to as ...
... less immoral . Catholic casuistry had its classical moment in the eighteenth century , when rigorist Jansenists contended against what they regarded as the moral laxity of the Jesuits . The compromise position , often referred to as ...
Page 28
... less simple. Should a mother or father of small children attempt to rescue a person drowning in a dangerous river, when in all likelihood the only result of the intervention will be the death of the parent? Should you endanger your life ...
... less simple. Should a mother or father of small children attempt to rescue a person drowning in a dangerous river, when in all likelihood the only result of the intervention will be the death of the parent? Should you endanger your life ...
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