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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... intellectual training and financial assistance . Thanks to my dissertation committee : Allen Speight , Richard Primack , Lawrence Cahoone , and Erazim Kohak . Special thanks to my first reader , Michael Martin , whose commitment and ...
... intellectual has begun what remains America's most famous com- mencement speech . It contains no praise for the successful young schol- ars or ingratiating jokes . Its short greeting is followed by a complaint and a challenge . " We do ...
... intellectual independence that completes our political independence. We must think our own thoughts. Not, of course, that we will fail to take advan- tage of past discoveries or study the world's literary, scientific, and reli- gious ...
... intellectual division of labor Emerson dis- trusted : a few knowers and many " doers . " Emerson reverses all this here , emphasizing the commonplace miracle of knowledge . He insists that each of us can know truth; also, as we have ...
... intellectual precursors. His stress on individual faith was squarely in the Protestant tradition. The American political tradition, too, emphasized the value of the individual and held out great, democratic hopes for the common man ...
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 |