Meaning And Morality: Essays On The Philosophy Of Julius Kovesi (studies In Moral Philosophy)

Julius Kovesi's Moral Notions (1967) was a startlingly original contribution to moral philosophy and theory of meaning. After initial positive reviews Kovesi's book was largely forgotten. Nevertheless, it continued to have an enduring influence on a number of philosophers and theologians some of whom have contributed to this volume. The original essays collected here critique, analyze, deepen and extend the work of Kovesi. The book will be of particular interest to moral philosophers and those working on concept formation, while also having a broader appeal to social scientists grappling with the description/evaluation problem. note Alan Tapper, Ph.D. (1987) in Philosophy, University of Western Australia, is Research Fellow, John Curtin Institute of Public Policy at Curtin University. T. Brian Mooney Ph.D. (1993) in Philosophy, La Trobe University, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Singapore Management University Publisher's note Meaning and Morality: Essays on the Philosophy of Julius Kovesi 4 Contents 6 Volume Foreword 8 Acknowledgements 10 List of Contributors 12 Alan Tapper and T. Brian Mooney: Introduction 14 Anthony Kenny: Prologue: Memories of Julius Kovesi 28 1 Bernard Harrison: Kovesi’s Refutation of Hume 32 2 R. E. Ewin: Kovesi’s Moral Point of View 56 3 T. Brian Mooney, Mark Nowacki and John N. Williams: Kovesi, Connaturality, and the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Virtues 72 1. Introduction 72 2. A Metaphysics that Grounds an Account of Purposes and Interests 75 3. Virtues and Connaturality 79 4. Know-how and Skill 87 5. Intellectual and Moral Virtues 93 6. How This Fixes Things for Kovesi 96 4 Peter A. French: Moral Notions and Originality and Some Examples: Reflections on Kovesi 98 5 Jean Bethke Elshtain: What’s Morality Got To Do With It? Making the Right Distinctions 120 1. Introduction 120 2. Emotivism, Evaluation, and Description 121 3. What Is a Terrorist? 126 4. Why Making the Right Distinctions Is So Important 129 5. Conclusion: Democratic Argument Requires Getting the Distinctions Right 131 6 R. E. Ewin and Alan Tapper: MacIntyre and Kovesi on the Nature of Moral Concepts 136 1. Kovesi, MacIntyre and Ways of Doing Philosophy 136 2. MacIntyre’s Account of Lying and Truthful Relationships 138 3. Kovesi on the Concept of Lying 140 4. MacIntyre’s Rules and Kovesi’s Concepts 143 5. Other Points Showing that Lying is Not a Complete Moral Concept 146 6. Conclusion 149 7 Dennis Patterson: Kovesi and Legal Reasoning 152 8 James Doughney: Kovesi and Searle: Thinking in Parallel? 156 9 Alan Tapper: Kovesi on Natural World Concepts and the Theory of Meaning 180 1. Kovesi and Concepts 180 2. Philosophers and Water 182 3. ‘Water’ in the Everyday Sense 184 4. ‘Water’ as a Scientifijic Concept 186 5. Conceptual Families 187 6. Factitious Concepts 191 7. Two Theories of Concepts 193 8. On Water, Love and Murder 196 9. Kovesi’s Theory of Concepts 199 10 T. Brian Mooney and Lee Churchman: Kovesi’s Concepts and Plato’s Ideas 202 1. Kovesi on Platonic Ideas 202 2. Separation and Epistemology in Plato’s Dialogues 207 3. Kovesi’s Interpretation of Plato: A Critical Examination 219 3.1. Textual Considerations 220 3.2. Knowledge, Belief and the Objects of Cognition 221 Index 232 The essays in this volume address the importance of Kovesi's work on moral philosophy and concept formation. The essays extend Kovesi's insights on moral philosophy into broader areas and compares and contrasts his work with that of key ancient and contemporary thinkers.