Reflections On How We Live

by Annette Baier

Overview

The pioneering moral philosopher Annette Baier presents a series of new and recent essays in ethics, broadly conceived to include both engagements with other philosophers and personal meditations on life. Baier's unique voice and insight illuminate a wide range of topics. In the public sphere, she enquires into patriotism, what we owe future people, and what toleration we should have for killing. In the private sphere, she discusses honesty, self-knowledge, hope, sympathy, and self-trust, and offers personal reflections on faces, friendship, and alienating affection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199570362
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/22/2010
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Annette Baier is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

1 The Rights of Past and Future Persons 1

2 For the Sake of Future Generations 16

3 Discriminate Death-Dealing: Who May Kill Whom, and How? 54

4 Can Philosophers Be Patriots? 67

5 Why Honesty Is a Hard Virtue 85

Postscript 109

6 Getting in Touch With Our Own Feelings 111

7 How to Get to Know One's Own Mind: Some Simple Ways 128

8 The Moral Perils of Intimacy 148

9 Feelings That Matter 157

10 Demoralization, Trust, and the Virtues 173

11 Sympathy and Self-Trust 189

12 Putting Hope in its Place 216

13 How to Lose Friends: Some Simple Ways 230

14 Alienating Affection 241

15 Faces, and Other Body Parts 244

16 Other Minds: Jottings Towards an Intellectual Self-Image 252

Acknowledgments 269

Name Index 271

Subject Index 274