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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... human flourishing— begins and all too often ends with Aristotle, but critics have been quick to note the implausibility of his metaphysical biology, his overly static view of human society, and other aspects of his ethical theory that a ...
... human life generally. No part of us should be wasted, no part of us neglected, Emerson believes. We may order our lives so as to pursue our ideals. And we may, through experi- ence, come to better understand the full extent of human ...
... human rights and regard for the least favored members of society — and add a concern for the pursuit of excellence and human flourishing . We can see that Emerson is a virtue ethicist by the very terms he uses . He speaks of " heroism ...
... human strength and the main resource for human development . Here , of course , he will follow the master's lead , but in a way that will take his mature philosophy quite a way from Emerson's anthropocen- trism . In Nature Emerson had ...
... human life, including its value and limitations as a guide to right living. The epigraph suggests that Thoreau has made a choice here. Like Coleridge, he could have written an ode to dejection: faced west at sun- set, rather than rising ...
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 |