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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... philosophers another perspective on virtue ethics, one less based on ancient philoso- phy and more grounded in modern life and ... philosophers. Second, I want to suggest to environmentalists and environmental philosophers ix Preface.
... philosophers a valuable new way to think about our proper place in the world, one which rejects both narrowly ... philosopher. More than thirty years ago, Stanley Cavell pioneered taking Thoreau seriously as a philoso- pher, with rich ...
... philosophers have begun to ask the ancients ' questions again , questions that have lost none of their importance during hun- dreds of years of philosophical neglect . This revival of " virtue ethics " bids fair to broaden contemporary ...
... philosopher's belief that abstractions best reveal truth and com- pel assent. When Margaret Fuller, editor of the short-lived transcenden- talist journal the Dial, rejected the piece, she did no injury to Thoreau's literary reputation ...
... philosophers ' recent interest in moral character , in opposition to the nearly exclusive focus on discrete actions that characterized philosophical ethics throughout most of the twentieth century . After describing one of Raleigh's ...
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 |