You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Philosopher and popular Middlebury professor Dr. Lorraine Besser reveals the missing third piece in our search for the Good Life—what she calls The Interesting—and teaches us how to cultivate it in our lives. Do you know anyone who's truly living The Good Life? Traditionally, philosophers and psychologists have thought of the Good Life in terms of happiness or meaning, or some combination of both. But, if it’s really that simple, if all you need is more happiness or meaning to get to the Good Life, why aren’t more of us achieving that truly “good” life? You’ve hit all the traditional markers, jumped on the happiness train, committed to a gratitude practice, sought purpose in yo...
In this book, Lorraine Besser-Jones develops a eudaimonistic virtue ethics based on a psychological account of human nature. While her project maintains the fundamental features of the eudaimonistic virtue ethical framework—virtue, character, and well-being—she constructs these concepts from an empirical basis, drawing support from the psychological fields of self-determination and self-regulation theory. Besser-Jones’s resulting account of "eudaimonic ethics" presents a compelling normative theory and offers insight into what is involved in being a virtuous person and "acting well." This original contribution to contemporary ethics and moral psychology puts forward a provocative hypothesis of what an empirically-based moral theory would look like.
In this book, Lorraine Besser-Jones develops a eudaimonistic virtue ethics based on a psychological account of human nature. While her project maintains the fundamental features of the eudaimonistic virtue ethical framework—virtue, character, and well-being—she constructs these concepts from an empirical basis, drawing support from the psychological fields of self-determination and self-regulation theory. Besser-Jones’s resulting account of "eudaimonic ethics" presents a compelling normative theory and offers insight into what is involved in being a virtuous person and "acting well." This original contribution to contemporary ethics and moral psychology puts forward a provocative hypothesis of what an empirically-based moral theory would look like.
Emerging research on the subject of happiness—in psychology, economics, and public policy—reawakens and breathes new life into long-standing philosophical questions about happiness (e.g., What is it? Can it really be measured or pursued? What is its relationship to morality?). By analyzing this research from a philosophical perspective, Lorraine L. Besser is able to weave together the contributions of other disciplines, and the result is a robust, deeply contoured understanding of happiness made accessible for nonspecialists. This book is the first to thoroughly investigate the fundamental theoretical issues at play in all the major contemporary debates about happiness, and it stands out especially in its critical analysis of empirical research. The book’s coverage of the material is comprehensive without being overwhelming. Its structure and pedagogical features will benefit students or anyone studying happiness for the first time: Each chapter opens with an initial overview and ends with a summary and list of suggested readings.
Virtue ethics is on the move both in Anglo-American philosophy and in the rest of the world. This volume uniquely emphasizes non-Western varieties of virtue ethics at the same time that it includes work in the many different fields or areas of philosophy where virtue ethics has recently spread its wings. Just as significantly, several chapters make comparisons between virtue ethics and other ways of approaching ethics or political philosophy or show how virtue ethics can be applied to "real world" problems.
This collection sheds light on precisely how virtues and reasons are related to each other and what can be learned by exploring this relationship. The first section analyzes how the virtues may be related to, or linked with, normative reasons in ways that improve our understanding of what constitutes virtuous character and ethical agency. The second section explores the reasons moral agents have for cultivating the virtues of character and how the virtues impact moral responsiveness or development. The final section examines how reasons can be employed in understanding the nature of virtue, and how specific virtues, like modesty and practical wisdom, interact with reasons.
Research on self-control in both philosophy and psychology is thriving. Yet, despite a wealth of recent philosophical work on the exercise of self-control, there has been surprisingly little empirically informed work in philosophy on self-control as a psychological trait. This book aims to fill this gap. There is abundant evidence that self-control is beneficial both to those who have it and to the societies in which they live. This book shows that the neo-Aristotelian framework for understanding self-control-related traits, which has dominated both philosophy and the sciences, is psychologically unrealistic and should be replaced. The traditional conceptions of temperance and continence nee...
When speaking of society’s role in ethics, one tends to think of society as regimenting people through its customs. Ethics and Social Survival rejects theories that treat ethics as having justification within itself and contends that ethics can have a grip on humans only if it serves their deep-seated need to live together. It takes a social-survival view of ethical life and its norms by arguing that ethics looks to society not for regimentation by customs, but rather for the viability of society. Fisk traces this theme through the work of various philosophers and builds a consideration of social divisions to show how rationalists fail to realize their aim of justifying ethical norms across divisions. The book also explores the relation of power and authority to ethics—without simply dismissing them as impediments—and explains how personal values such as honesty, modesty, and self-esteem still retain ethical importance. Finally, it shows that basing ethics on avoiding social collapse helps support familiar norms of liberty, justice, and democracy, and strives to connect global and local ethics.
Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.
The Virtue of Solidarity brings together twelve world-leading philosophers to reflect on the nature, history, and virtue of solidarity. The new essays in this volume range from the sociological, to the religious, to the political. This comprehensive volume presents solidarity's many forms and justifications and explores the most urgent questions that surround it.