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Overview
The discussion of good and evil must not be confined to the sterile lecture halls of academics but related instead to ordinary human feelings, needs, and desires, says noted philosopher Richard Taylor. Efforts to understand morality by exploring human reason will always fail because we are creatures of desire as well. All morality arises from our intense and inescapable longing. The distinction between good and evil is always clouded by rationalists who convert the real problems of ethics into complex philosophical puzzles.
In the first part of Good and Evil, Taylor looks for a more meaningful conception by reexamining and rejecting the whole rationalistic tradition that dominates philosophical ethics. The second part provides an empirical explanation of good and evil, noting that one does not have to look too far to find prime examples of the failure of fixed moral rules.
Including important commentary on Joseph Fletcher's groundbreaking situation ethics, and Aristotle's virtues (e.g., magnanimity and pride), Taylor rounds out the book by developing a philosophy of aspiration—personal worth as an ethical ideal—to replace the morality of duty. He offers a modified form of situation ethics to fit the contemporary problems we face.
Synopsis
This unique volume, written by one of America's most distinguished philosophers, relates the distinction between good and evil--together with all morality--to human feelings, needs, desires, and purposes, rather than to human reason and intelligence. It shows that we are desirous as well as rational beings, and that all morality arises from this deeper facet of our nature.
It is Taylor's belief that the attempt to shed light on morality through the consideration of human reason (thought to be humankind's noblest quality) has not only shed more darkness than light, but has converted the real problems of ethics into philosophical puzzles, leaving us groping for an understanding of good and evil and a better way of life. He repudiates the rationalistic conception of morality, primarily begun by Socrates and epitomized in Kant, and replaces it with a more meaningful conception.
In the first part of Good and Evil, Taylor searches for a more meaningful way to conceptualize these terms, which each of us lives with every day. After reexamining and rejecting the whole reason-based tradition of unrelenting structure and rigidity that dominated philosophical ethics for centuries, he shows that there has to be a better way to explain what we mean when we speak of good and evil. The second part provides an empirical explanation of good and evil, noting that one does not have to look too far to find prime examples of the failure of fixed moral rules. Including important commentary on Aristotle's virtues (for example, magnanimity and pride), Taylor rounds out the book by developing a philosophy of aspiration--personal worth as an ethical ideal--to replace the morality of duty, and offers a modified form of situation ethics to fit the contemporary problems we face.
American Rationalist
Taylor's book is written with great clarity. I recommend it.