He also criticizes evidence from animal behavior and child development that has been taken to support the claim that moral attitudes are hard-wired by natural selection. Prinz concludes that there is no single true morality, but he also argues that some moral values are better than others; moral progress is possible. Throughout the book, Prinz relates his views to contemporary and historical work in philosophical ethics. His views echo themes in the writings of David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche, but Prinz supports, extends, and revises these classic theories using the resources of cutting-edge cognitive science.
Naturalism and Hume's Law Part I. Morality and Emotion 1.
Nonmoral and Moral 3. Against Objectivity Part II. Dining with Cannibals 6. The Genealogy of Morals 7. The Limits of Evolutionary Ethics 8. Beyond Good and Evil? Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.
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Jesse Prinz
Choose your country or region Close. Ebook This title is available as an ebook. To purchase, visit your preferred ebook provider. Oxford Scholarship Online This book is available as part of Oxford Scholarship Online - view abstracts and keywords at book and chapter level. The Emotional Construction of Morals Jesse Prinz Jesse Prinz presents a bravura argument for highly controversial claims about morality, which go to the heart of our understanding of ourselves. Moral Character Christian B.
The Emotional Construction of Morals by Jesse J. Prinz
The Centered Mind Peter Carruthers. The Aesthetic Brain Anjan Chatterjee. Prinz concludes that there is no single true morality, but he also argues that some moral values are better than others; moral progress is possible. Throughout the book, Prinz relates his views to contemporary and historical work in philosophical ethics. His views echo themes in the writings of David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche, but Prinz supports, extends, and revises these classic theories using the resources of cutting-edge cognitive science. The Emotional Construction of Morals will stimulate and challenge anyone who is curious about the nature and origin of moral values.
Hardcover , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Emotional Construction of Morals , please sign up. Be the first to ask a question about The Emotional Construction of Morals. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Jul 13, Chris Meyers rated it really liked it. Prinz argues for a sentimentalist theory of moral judgment.
Moral concepts are essentially related to emotions and moral properties are dispositions to cause particular emotions. For example, the wrongness of an action is its tendency to cause in me, guilt when I do it and anger when others do it.
2008.06.29
Prinz makes an important distinction between sentiments and emotions. A sentiment is a disposition instantiated in the brain to feel certain emotions in certain contexts, whereas an emotion is an occ Prinz argues for a sentimentalist theory of moral judgment. A sentiment is a disposition instantiated in the brain to feel certain emotions in certain contexts, whereas an emotion is an occurrant mental state. Moral concepts and moral rules are instantiated in sentiments, while particular emotional reactions constitute moral judgments.
Prinz goes on to draw the implications of his theory. In particular, it supports appraiser-relativism. Moral judgments are true and false, but only relative to the person judging. That is a true statement, but it is true relative to me. Prinz goes on to argue that his theory also entails agent-relativism: But most of the arguments for the theory appear in the first chapter, and they are a bit sketchy.
The rest of the book defends the theory against criticisms and provides the details that allow for both internal and external consistency. Though overall consistency is convincingly achieved, many parts of the theory are implausible when considered in isolation.
Jesse Prinz is probably one of the most frustrating people for me to read, for the same reason Robert Cray is the hardest guitarist for me to listen to; as I work through the manuscript, I'm struck simultaneously by aspiration and desperation. This is Prinz's full length stab at metaethics and really the best book length articulation of the developing constructivist programme. As is Prinz's style, it's thick with moves through the cognitive scientific literature, and gestures to contemporary and Jesse Prinz is probably one of the most frustrating people for me to read, for the same reason Robert Cray is the hardest guitarist for me to listen to; as I work through the manuscript, I'm struck simultaneously by aspiration and desperation.
As is Prinz's style, it's thick with moves through the cognitive scientific literature, and gestures to contemporary and historical philosophical literature.
This makes it a really rich and thorough overview, but probably not the best introduction to the constructivist view for those who are unfamiliar. It is, however, a good piece of writing for those familiar with and writing on the constructivist project to have access to as a general starting point for talking about various features of the view e. Every philosopher has idiosyncracies to their version of any philosophically interesting view; but Prinz does a pretty good job clarifying which of his own positions are idiosyncratic and which are more well accepted by sympathetic constructivists.
Prinz, in particular, writes from a strong philosophy of mind standpoint and focuses heavily on the mind-dependence claims about moral values in contrast to, e. It's probably not the most compelling approach for articulating the book to entrenched ethicists; but you can't do everything at once. I think this book is a terrific place to take a graduate level seminar in metaethics, especially as a response to Parfit's "On What Matters" vol 2 and 3, especially and generally as a preface to constructivist approaches as a counterpoint.
The fact that Prinz comments directly on issues including relativism, moral epistemology, and many of the concerns that worm they way into first-order ethics really shows how thoughtful and well developed the book is, and how much work Prinz put into making sure this would communicate well with input from a lot of philosophical domains. As always, I walk away from one of Prinz's books both better informed and impressed by the argument. In this case, I happened to agree with him pretty strongly going into the book minus some minutiae on exactly how the account handles some particular issues but still feel like he did a good job taking concerns and counter arguments seriously.
I would strongly recommend this book to those interested in contemporary work in metaethics, provided that person can read philosophy at a graduate level. Jul 20, Chris rated it it was amazing Shelves: An excellent, thorough-going, and rigorous defense of a sensibility theory of morality. It's one of the best defenses of moral relativism that I've read.
The sections on moral judgment and hidden indexicals, genealogy, and the limitations of evolutionary approaches to morality are particularly good, I think. The discussion of moral progress from a relativist standpoint is also notable. Prinz's The Emotional Construction of Morals will be of interest to a wide range of scholars in academic philos An excellent, thorough-going, and rigorous defense of a sensibility theory of morality.
Prinz's The Emotional Construction of Morals will be of interest to a wide range of scholars in academic philosophy including specialists in meta-ethics, the science of morality, Hume, and Nietzsche.
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General readers will find it accessible, although they may find some of the more technical discussions found in some sections difficult e. Aug 09, Juan Lulkin rated it it was amazing Shelves: Jesse's endeavour is a tour the force. He goes on point by point, objection by objection, author by author with responses with creative insights and profound knowledge. It's commendable to see this kind of rigorous work in academia, in an age we're surrounded by nonsense and not rigorous postmodern thought.