On the Ethics of Naturalism

On the Ethics of Naturalism

The Deed of Foundation of the Shaw Fellowship provides that "it shall be in the power of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh to require the holder of the Shaw Philosophical Fellowship, during the fourth or fifth year of his tenure of it, to deliver in the University of Edinburgh a course of Lectures, not exceeding four, on any of the subjects for the encouragement of the study of which the Fellowship has been founded." The following pages consist of four lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh, in accordance with this provision, in the month of January 1884. It is a common remark that a writer's ethical doctrine is throughout conditioned by his attitude to the problems of theoretical philosophy. The main lines of dispute in questions of ethics may be regarded as prolongations of the controversies which arise in metaphysics and psychology. The Realism or Idealism which marks a speculative system reappears in its ethics, whilst differences in the psychological analysis of mental states, or concerning the relation of pleasure to desire, are grounds of distinction between schools of moralists. |(a) Dependence of ethical on theoretical points of view| And not only are the special controversies of ethics decided in different ways, but the scope of the whole science is differently conceived, as the speculative standpoint changes. |(a) teleological,| Thus, not for one school only, but for a whole period in the history[2] of reflection, ethics was regarded as an inquiry into the highest human good. Opposed schools agreed in looking from this point of view, however much they might differ from one another in defining the nature of that highest good. |(b) jural,| At other times, according to the prevailing view, to investigate and systematise the rules of conduct has exhausted the scope of ethicscontroversies being carried on as to the nature of those rules, and their source in external authority or in the internal revelation of conscience. |(c) empirical:| Again, ethical inquiry has been apparently identified with the analysis and history of the moral affections and sentiments; while a purely external point of view seems to be sometimes adopted, and ethics held to be an investigation of the historical results of action, and of the forms, customary and institutional, in which those results find permanent expression. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 48027
Author: Sorley, W. R. (William Ritchie)
Release Date: Jan 19, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English