Moral Strategy : An Introduction to the Ethics of Confrontation

No statement, except one, can be made with which all philosophers would agree. The exception is this statement itself. The disagreement has the advantage that it gets all the proposals out into the open where they can be examined, but it has the dis advantage that the cogency of any one philosophy must rely entirely upon that wide public which is unprepared to deal with it. Fortunately, ethics has a more immediate appeal than some other branches of philosophy; yet the history of the topic gives no indication that this circumstance has had the happy results we might have expected. One peculiarity of ethics is that its problems are rarely settled on its own grounds. Ethical problems are for the most part referred to socially established moralities, and moralities are socially established not on the basis of philosophy but rather by some sponsoring insti­ or politics. Such establishments, however, tution, usually religion depend on the prior preparation of ethical proposals by philosophers. For it stands to reason that an ethics cannot be socially established if there is no ethics to establish. Thus philosophers provide the justifi­ cation for socially-established moralities while seeming not to do so. Front Matter....Pages i-xi Front Matter....Pages 1-1 Methodological Considerations....Pages 3-16 The Moral Integrative Levels....Pages 17-21 A Summary Perspective....Pages 22-24 Front Matter....Pages 25-25 The Individual Good....Pages 27-51 Approaches to the Good....Pages 52-77 The Pursuit of the Good....Pages 78-98 Morality as Social Structure....Pages 101-112 The Covert Moral Structure....Pages 113-115 The Overt Moral Structure....Pages 116-120 Rights and Duties....Pages 121-126 The Law and Legal Procedures....Pages 127-134 From Society to Humanity....Pages 137-147 Characteristics of the Human Species....Pages 148-155 The Morality of the Human Species....Pages 156-160 Moral Encounters with Near-by Species....Pages 161-166 The Cosmic Perspective....Pages 169-173 The Cosmic Good....Pages 174-180 Truth and Value....Pages 181-185 Cosmic Type Responsibility....Pages 186-188 Cosmic Confrontation....Pages 189-191 Front Matter....Pages 25-25 Normative Cosmic Ethics....Pages 192-196 The Ethics of Man in Relation to the Cosmos....Pages 197-199 Front Matter....Pages 201-201 The Choice of Ideals....Pages 203-209 Individual Ideals....Pages 210-218 Social Ideals....Pages 219-222 Human Ideals....Pages 223-228 Cosmic Ideals....Pages 229-232 Bad Behavior and Immorality....Pages 235-243 Bad Individual Behavior....Pages 244-256 Bad Social Behavior....Pages 257-265 Bad Species Behavior....Pages 266-268 Bad Cosmic Behavior....Pages 269-270 The Uses of Strategy....Pages 273-277 The Strategy of Individual Obligation....Pages 278-290 The Strategy of Social Obligation....Pages 291-298 The Strategy of Human Obligation....Pages 299-303 The Strategy of Cosmic Obligation....Pages 304-316 Back Matter....Pages 317-325