Ethics in the History of Western Philosophy

447 Pages·1989·45.522 MB·English

by  Robert J. Cavalier, James Gouinlock, James P. Sterba (eds.)

ETHICS IN THE HISTORY
OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
Also by Robert f. Cavalier
LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN'S TRACTATUS
LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS:
A Transcendental Critique of Ethics
Also by fames Gouinlock
JOHN DEWEY'S PHILOSOPHY OF VALUE
THE MORAL WRITINGS OF JOHN DEWEY
Also by fames P. Sterba
JUSTICE: ALTERNATIVE POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES
THE DEMANDS OF JUSTICE
JUSTICE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE
ETHICS IN THE
HISTORY OF
WESTERN
PHILOSOPHY
Edited by
Robert J. Cavalier
Coordinator
'Project Theoria: Interactive Video Media for Moral Reasoning'
Carnegie Mellon University
James Gouinlock
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Emory University
Atlanta
and
James P. Sterba
Professor of Philosophy
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana
M
MACMILLAN
Selection and editorial material© Robert J. Cavalier 1989:
Chapter 1 ©Arthur Adkins 1989; Chapter 2 ©Alfonso Gomez-Lobo 1989;
Chapter 3 ©Thomas Losoncy 1989; Chapter 4 ©Vernon J. Bourke 1989;
Chapter 5 ©Larry May 1989; Chapter 6 ©David Fate Norton 1989;
Chapter 7 ©Christine Korsgaard 1989; Chapter 8 ©John Lachs 1989;
Chapter 9 ©Richard Schacht 1989; Chapter 10 ©James Gouinlock 1989;
Chapter 11 ©Hazel E. Barnes 1989; Chapter 12 ©Stephen Darwall1989;
Chapter 13 ©James P. Sterba 1989.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
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First published 1989
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Typeset by Oxprint Ltd, Oxford
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Ethics in the history of Western philosophy.
1. Ethics. Theories, to 1980
I. Cavalier, Robert J., 1947- II. Gouinlock,
James, 1933- III. Sterba, James, P., 1943-
170'.9
ISBN 978-0-333-45244-8 ISBN 978-1-349-20203-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-20203-4
Contents
List C'f Figures vi
Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on the Contributors xi
1 Plato 1
Arthur Adkins
2 Aristotle 32
Alfonso Gomez-Lobo
3 St Augustine 60
Thomas Losoncy
4 Aquinas 98
Vernon f. Bourke
5 Hobbes 125
Larry May
6 Hume 155
David Fate Norton
7 Kant 201
Christine Korsgaard
8 Mill 244
John Lachs
9 Nietzsche 271
Richard Schacht
10 Dewey 306
James Gouinlock
11 Sartre 335
Hazel E. Barnes
12 Moore to Stevenson 366
Stephen Danvall
13 Toulmin to Rawls 399
James P. Sterba
Index 422
v
List of Figures
Figure 1 AMOR 77
Figure 2 Analysis of Choice 105
vi
Preface
Comprehensive and sustained work in the history of ethics has been
suprisingly meagre, especially in light of the dictum that 'an under
standing of philosophy often entails an understanding of the history
of philosophy'. Henry Sidgwick' s Outlines of the History of Ethics for
English Readers (1886) is the one durable work of the past while
Vernon J. Bourke's History of Ethics (1968) and Alasdair Macintyre's
A Short History of Ethics (1967) are the only works of the present that
can be genuinely recommended. And each of the above contain
differences in method and points of emphasis, making them far
from the final word on the subject.
The weakness of scholarly work in this area can be explained in
two ways. The first has to do with the extreme difficulty that a single
person would have in trying to think through the entire history of
moral philosophy. The difficulty arises from the fact that a true
history of ethics is deeper and far more complex than a mere
'summary of positions'. To understand a philosopher's ethical theory,
that philosopher must be placed within the immediacy of the specific
philosophical issues and the general cultural problems that con
fronted the writer at the time of his work and that formed the frame
of reference for the meaning of his position. A true history of ethics
takes the form of a historical narrative which contextualises a moral
theory in order to achieve a correct understanding of that moral
theory. Research into this kind of approach to the history of ethics is
critically lacking.
The lack of work in this area comes not only out of the difficulty of
the task, but also out of a certain attitude taken by 20th-century
Anglo-American philosophers with regard to the very idea of moral
philosophy itself. Macintyre, in After Virtue (Indiana: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1981), sees this attitude in 'the persistently
unhistorical treatment of moral philosophy by contemporary phil
osophers in both the writing about and the teaching of the subject'
(p. 11). He amplifies this by noting that 'we all too often still treat the
moral philosophers of the past as contributors to a single debate
with a relatively unvarying subject-matter, treating Plato and Hume
and Mill as contemporaries both of ourselves and of each other'.
With this attitude, history has become irrelevant to the subject
matter of ethics.
vii
viii Preface
This book hopes to overcome both the difficulty of and the attitude
towards doing a history of ethics. It seeks to provide a prolegomenon
to the writing of a historical narrative through a series of single
author chapters which discuss the context of selected ethical theories
as those theories are found in key figures of western philosophy.
The emphasis in each case will be on the development of the
theory within the specific historical context that formed its immediate
frame of reference. The criterion used for choosing the philosophers
to be discussed is that the philosopher chosen should be a major
systematic writer in the history of western philosophy. The only
exception to this rule is in 20th-century Anglo-American ethical
theory, where the analytic method tended to produce a series of
specialised works and articles that are best represented by a collec
tion of writers rather than a single figure.
This is a 'history of ethics' that is valuable for the student wishing
to know a certain theory, a scholar wishing to criticise a certain theory,
and a person wishing to study the history of ethics in the sense of
seeking themes, divergences and convergences. No attempt is
made here to draw sweeping conclusions or to make comparative
judgements regarding the whole of the history of ethics.
Furthermore, our task is not to produce an encyclopaedic view of
the entire history of ethics nor to pronounce the final word on any
particular philosopher within that history. Rather, we seek to join
the recent move in philosophy that recognises the importance of
history and context in the ongoing activity of philosophy. We hope
that by taking this route we have provided access to these ethical
theories, and in such a way that they will become understandable to
a broad range of readers.
Robert J. Cavalier
Carnegie Mellon University
Acknowledgements
A collaborative effort involving years of preparation naturally owes
a great many debts to a number of individuals and institutions. We
would like first of all to express our gratitude to the Matchette
Foundation for supporting a conference on this topic that was held
at the University of Notre Dame in the Spring of 1985. Our appreci
ation also extends to the Philosophy Departments of Emory, Notre
Dame and Towson State universities.
Individuals who have offered helpful comments, encourage
ments, suggestions and criticisms or who have otherwise enabled
the book to reach its finished state include: Tom Beauchamp, Jude
Dougherty, Wolfgang Fuchs, Jerald Kreyche, James Rachels, J. B.
Scheewind and Calvin 0. Schrag. There have been many others
besides, and we appreciate all who have helped.
ix