Thoreau's Living Ethics: Walden and the Pursuit of VirtueUniversity of Georgia Press, 25 de jan. de 2010 - 288 páginas Thoreau's Living Ethics is the first full, rigorous account of Henry Thoreau's ethical philosophy. Focused on Walden but ranging widely across his writings, the study situates Thoreau within a long tradition of ethical thinking in the West, from the ancients to the Romantics and on to the present day. Philip Cafaro shows Thoreau grappling with important ethical questions that agitated his own society and discusses his value for those seeking to understand contemporary ethical issues. Cafaro's particular interest is in Thoreau's treatment of virtue ethics: the branch of ethics centered on personal and social flourishing. Ranging across the central elements of Thoreau's philosophy—life, virtue, economy, solitude and society, nature, and politics—Cafaro shows Thoreau developing a comprehensive virtue ethics, less based in ancient philosophy than many recent efforts and more grounded in modern life and experience. He presents Thoreau's evolutionary, experimental ethics as superior to the more static foundational efforts of current virtue ethicists. Another main focus is Thoreau's environmental ethics. The book shows Thoreau not only anticipating recent arguments for wild nature's intrinsic value, but also demonstrating how a personal connection to nature furthers self-development, moral character, knowledge, and creativity. Thoreau's life and writings, argues Cafaro, present a positive, life-affirming environmental ethics, combining respect and restraint with an appreciation for human possibilities for flourishing within nature. |
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... common man, meanwhile, may fail to reflect on his own actions. Acting "merely mechanically," he pursues economic ends that others have deemed valuable; he worships according to forms and creeds bequeathed by long-dead geniuses and ...
... common, familiar and low," the stuff of everyday life.7 Activity and enriched experience should be the goals of the scholar. "The theory of books is noble," Emerson writes. "The scholar of the first age received into him the world ...
... common moral duties. Rather they are duties of self-cultivation, on the one hand, and duties to enrich the nation's culture, religion, politics, and public life generally, on the other. These latter are the scholar's social duties, the ...
... common American life or suggest improvements. For both the literary class and for ordinary people, there are new possibilities and challenges, and the stakes are great. We may remain subhuman: repeating dead forms, thinking others ...
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Conteúdo
1 | |
16 | |
Virtue | 45 |
Economy | 76 |
Solitude and Society | 106 |
Nature | 139 |
Politics | 174 |
Foundations | 205 |
Death | 230 |
A Note to the Reader | 237 |
Notes | 239 |
Bibliography | 259 |
Index | 265 |