Selected essays
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Selected essays
Oxford University Press, 2010
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
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  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
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  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
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  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
In Selected Essays Michael Slote collects some of the most important papers of his career, articles that were both influential as well as those that remain relevant to philosophical debates today. The papers range over a number of important topics-not all of them within or having to do with ethics. Three of the papers have to do with ways in which one might fill out or expand upon traditional utilitarian views-while remaining within the utilitarian
tradition. Two of the papers focus on free will, and another pair discuss rational choice and argue that traditional views about individual rationality unduly limit our possibilities.
The papers outside ethics deal with such topics as counterfactuals; Wittgensteinian accounts of "cluster terms;" some familiar concepts we use that cannot apply to reality; and a paradox about the possibility of circumstances where it is linguistically inappropriate to assert what one believes. In addition to the previously published essays, Slote includes more recent and unpublished papers that deal with the uses of empathy in the context of global issues of justice; the limitations of the
"moral reasoning" model of normal moral thinking; and the relevance of empathy to the epistemic ideal of objectivity. The final paper of the volume speaks about recent developments in ethical theory and what they may tell us about the possibilities of future progress or lack of progress in that
field.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The Theory of Important Criteria
- 2. Value Judgments and the Theory of Important Criteria
- 3. The Rationality of Aesthetic Value Judgments
- 4. Inapplicable Concepts
- 5. Morality and Ignorance
- 6. Time in Counterfactuals
- 7. Assertion and Belief
- 8. Understanding Free Will
- 9. Selective Necessity and the Free-Will Problem
- 10. Is Virtue Possible?
- 11. Morality Not a System of Imperatives
- 12. Review of Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds
- 13. Utilitarianism, Moral Dilemmas, and Moral Cost
- 14. Object Utilitarianism
- 15. Utilitarian Virtue
- 16. Moderation, Rationality, and Virtue
- 17. Rational Dilemmas and Rational Supererogation
- 18. Ethics Naturalized
- 19. Nietzsche and Virtue Ethics
- 20. Caring Versus the Philosophers
- 21. Global Caring, Global Justice
- 22. Empathy and Objectivity
- 23. In Place of Moral Reasoning
- 24. Some Thoughts for the Future
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