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
... tell him that violence is never the answer and suggest either exile or some form of civil disobedience against the illegitimate government. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are also students of political phi- losophy, have been ...
... tell him that violence is never the answer and suggest either exile or some form of civil disobedience against the illegitimate government. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who are also students of political phi- losophy, have been ...
Page 3
... tell your neighbors, some time in the future, that they are disturbing your rest? You are inclined to choose (c), because 4 The Morality of Everyday Life the wife is far. 1. Shakespeare may well have come from a Catholic recusant family ...
... tell your neighbors, some time in the future, that they are disturbing your rest? You are inclined to choose (c), because 4 The Morality of Everyday Life the wife is far. 1. Shakespeare may well have come from a Catholic recusant family ...
Page 7
... tell us, does not come out of the peculiar circumstances of being a mother or a Christian or a Jew, but from a philosophical or theological commitment to a global respon- sibility as determined by a rational individual who considers the ...
... tell us, does not come out of the peculiar circumstances of being a mother or a Christian or a Jew, but from a philosophical or theological commitment to a global respon- sibility as determined by a rational individual who considers the ...
Page 15
... tell his mother terrifying tales, she can only assume that his mind has been poisoned by cheap fiction. Ironically, it is pre- cisely his favorite fantasy books that have prepared the boy to under- stand life in modern California ...
... tell his mother terrifying tales, she can only assume that his mind has been poisoned by cheap fiction. Ironically, it is pre- cisely his favorite fantasy books that have prepared the boy to under- stand life in modern California ...
Page 17
... tell the tale. Whether the white whale being pursued was communism or capitalism, inequality or social injus- tice, Jews or Christians, the absolutists of recent centuries have inflicted more suffering on innocent people than all the ...
... tell the tale. Whether the white whale being pursued was communism or capitalism, inequality or social injus- tice, Jews or Christians, the absolutists of recent centuries have inflicted more suffering on innocent people than all 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