Plural and Conflicting Values

by Michael Stocker

Overview

Plural values and conflicting values are often held to be conceptually problematic, threatening the very possibility of ethics, or at least of rational ethics. This book rejects this view. The author first demonstrates why it is so important to understand the issues raised by plural and conflicting values. This includes a full discussion of Aristotle's treatment of the issues. He then goes on to show that plurality and conflict are commonplace and generally unproblematic features of our everyday choice and action, and that they do allow for a sound and rational ethic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191519741
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/01/1992
Series:	Clarendon Paperbacks
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	443 KB

About the Author

Michael Stocker, Guttag Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy, Syracuse University, New York; Reader in Philosophy, La Trobe University, Melbourne

Table of Contents

• SECTION I: Plurality and choice
• 1: Monism, pluralism, and conflict
• 2: Conflict
• 3: Maximization
• 4: Ought and can
• 5: Act and agent evaluations
• SECTION II: Akrasia
• 6: The unity of the good, commensurability, and comparability
• 7: Courage, the doctrine of the mean, and the possibility of emotional and evaluative coherence
• 8: Dirty hands and ordinary life
• 9: Dirty hands and conflicts of value and desires in Aristotle's ethics
• 10: Friendship and morality: some difficult relations
• 11: Some problems with counter-examples in ethics

Editorial Reviews

"Rich, provocative, insightful."—Philosophical Review

"Stocker's book is subtle, careful, convincing, surprising, and immensely provocative. Its treatment of such concepts as incommensurability, hedonism, and maximization make other philosophical discussions of these notions look crude by comparison. One cannot come away from reading this book without a finer appreciation of the nature of moral and evaluative choice."—Susan Wolf, Johns Hopkins University

"An extremely thoughtful and illuminating discussion...which casts considerable light on some very widespread misconceptions about the nature of moral thought and action....A splendid and thoroughly professional work from which there is much to be learned by anyone interested in these and related aspects of moral psychology."—Philosophical Books

"A subtle, imaginative, and intriguing piece, remarkable in the depth and breadth of human concerns that it addresses. It makes ethics come alive, and deserves careful study by anyone who cares about how to live well."—Australasian Journal of Philosophy

From the Publisher