The Roots of Morality
Published on 12. December 2008
Book
Hardback
464 pages
978-0-271-03392-1 (ISBN)
Description
This book argues the case for a foundationalist ethics centrally based on an empirical understanding of human nature. For Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, "an ethics formulated on the foundations of anything other than human nature, hence on anything other than an identification of pan-cultural human realities, lacks solid empirical moorings. It easily loses itself in isolated hypotheticals, reductionist scenarios, or theoretical abstractions-in the prisoner's dilemma, selfish genes, dedicated brain modules, evolutionary altruism, or psychological egoism, for example-or it easily becomes itself an ethical system over and above the ethics it formulates," such as the deontological ethics of Kantian categorical imperatives, the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, or the ethics of care.
Taking her cue from Hume, especially his Treatise on Human Nature, where he grounds "the moral sense" in human nature seen as always in tension between the natural tendencies of selfish acquisitiveness and sympathy for others, Sheets-Johnstone pursues her phenomenological investigation of the natural basis of human morality by directing her attention, first in Part I, to what is traditionally considered the dark side of human nature, and then, in Part II, to the positive side. The tension between the two calls for an interdisciplinary therapeutic resolution, which she offers in the Epilogue by arguing for the value of a moral education that enlightens humans about their own human nature, highlighting both the socialization of fear and the importance of play and creativity.
Taking her cue from Hume, especially his Treatise on Human Nature, where he grounds "the moral sense" in human nature seen as always in tension between the natural tendencies of selfish acquisitiveness and sympathy for others, Sheets-Johnstone pursues her phenomenological investigation of the natural basis of human morality by directing her attention, first in Part I, to what is traditionally considered the dark side of human nature, and then, in Part II, to the positive side. The tension between the two calls for an interdisciplinary therapeutic resolution, which she offers in the Epilogue by arguing for the value of a moral education that enlightens humans about their own human nature, highlighting both the socialization of fear and the importance of play and creativity.
Reviews / Votes
"This innovative and clearly written book is a significant contribution to the philosophy of the body, to ethics, and to phenomenology."-Robert P. Crease, SUNY, Stony Brook "The Roots of Morality is the crowning glory of Maxine Sheets-Johnstone's career-long three-volume survey of the sources of human thinking, power, and morals in the operations of human nature. With her trademark erudition and comprehensiveness of thought, drawing dramatically from disciplines as diverse as biology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, and literature, she traces the origins of morality in patterns of human behavior that shape our troubled journey from birth to death. Sheets-Johnstone gives a breathtaking tour of the deep tensions between our aggressive self-interest and our counterbalancing concern for the welfare of others. Along the way, she guides us into the depths of male-male competition, the cultural origins of war, our reliance on ideologies of immortality to flee from death, and the empathic strands of our nature that make possible our capacities for care, nurturance, and trust."
-Mark Johnson, University of Oregon "The Roots of Morality is a powerful examination of the origins of basic moral character from the interplay of human nature and social affective bodily experiences. Sheets-Johnstone offers ample evidence that moral education must be based not in formulation of moral principles, but rather firmly rooted in understandings of the nature of human nature. This carefully argued, well-documented text offers a compelling challenge to traditional approaches to moral theorizing."
-Nancy Tuana, Pennsylvania State University "Maxine Sheets-Johnstone handles weighty philosophy like a dancer: she writes gracefully of the body, movement, creativity, the smile, and vital aspects of play, not just cerebral matter."
-E. James Lieberman ForeWord "[The Roots of Morality] provides an indispensable supplement to any of a number of disciplines concerned with the question of what it is to be human."
-Phillip Guddemi Cybernetics and Human Knowing
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Pennsylvania
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Illustrations
0 Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
794 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-271-03392-1 (9780271033921)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Maxine Sheets-Johnstone is an independent scholar affiliated with the Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon. This volume is the third in a series of studies about "roots." The previous volumes are The Roots of Thinking (1990) and The Roots of Power (1994).
Content
Contents
Prologue: Human Nature and Human Morality: The Challenge of Grounding "the Moral Sense"
1. Introduction
2. The Foundations Laid by Hume in His Moral Philosophy
3. On the Origin of Sympathy and Selfishness: An Initial Determination
4. Unevenly Valorized Binary Oppositions: A Question of Life and Death
5. Hume's Affective Polarity Revisited
6. The Culture/Nature Opposition
From the Perspective of Mythology and Religion
From the Perspective of Patriarchal Symbolism
From the Perspective of Practices in Present-day Western Science
From the Perspective of the Cultural Practice of War
7. Conclusion
Notes
Part I
1 Size, Power, and Death: Constituents in the Making of Human Morality
I. Introduction
II. Size and Power
III. Cultural Translations of Biological Facts
IV. Cultural Transformations and Evolutionary Ethics
V. Immortality Ideologies
VI. Implications
Notes
2 Death and Immortality Ideologies in Western Philosophy
I. Introduction
II. Descartes
On the Purpose of the Meditations as Specified in the Synopsis
Mind as Immaterial Substance
Mind and the Question of Time
III. Heidegger and Immortality Ideologies
IV. Psychological Underpinnings of Immortality Ideologies
V. Derrida's Immortality Reading of Husserl and Derrida's Own Immortality Ideology
VI. The Double: A Further Sign of Derrida's Immortality Ideology
VII. The Last Word and the Ultimate Mortal Question
Notes
3 Real Male-Male Competition
I. Introduction
II. On Natural and Sexual Selection
III. Darwin's Seminal Insights into Male-Male Competition and Their Total Neglect in Current Research
IV. Exemplifications
V. Evolutionary Considerations
VI. A Methodological Imperative and A Closing Apologue
VII. An Afterword
Notes
4 On the Pan-cultural Origins of Evil
I. Introduction
II. The Banality of Evil
III. Affective Elaborations of the Banality of Evil
IV. Toward Pan-cultural Understandings of the Banality of Evil
V. Beginning Evolutionary Considerations
VI. Clarifications Along Motivational Lines
VII. Killing, Death, Fear: Elementary Facts of Human Life
VIII. Warriors and the Heroic Honing of Males
IX. A Finer Analysis of Motivation
X. Broader Socio-Political Understandings of the Heroic Honing of Males: A Return to Evolutionary Considerations
XI. Classic Studies: An Afterword on History and Science
Notes
Part II
5 Empathy
I. Introduction
II. Early Clues and Husserl's Archival Texts
III. Affect Attunement and the Qualitative Nature of Movement
IV. Emotions and Movement
V. Spontaneity
VI. The Kinetic Foundations of "Knowing Other Minds"
VII. Responsivity
VIII. Empathy
IX. A Postscript on Origins, History, and Methodology
Notes
6 Child's Play: A Multidisciplinary Perspective
I. Introduction
II. Rough and Tumble Play
III. Locomotor-Rotational Play
IV. Play and Laughter
V. Morality and Child's Play
Notes
7 On the Nature of Trust
I. Introduction
II. Learning to Trust: Uncovering Affective and Existential Realities
III. A Critical Examination of Luhmann's Thesis of a "Readiness to Trust"
IV. Affective Experience, Human Freedom, and Uncertainty: Deepened Understandings of Trust
Notes
8 The Rationality of Caring: Forging a Genuine Evolutionary Ethics
I. Introduction
II. Transfers of Sense: The Ground of Caring
III. Comsigns: The Evolutionary Basis of Intercorporeal Life
IV. The Rationality of Caring: Laying the Groundwork
V. The Living Import of the "Metaphysically Significant": The Experience of Interconnectedness
VI. The Living Import of the Metaphysically Significant: Interconnectedness, the Principle of Not Harming, and "Difference Removed"
VII. A Closer Look at the First Moral Principle and the Challenge of Human Existence
Notes
Epilogue: Re-Naturing the De-Natured Species: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
I. Introduction
II. Endangered Species
III. Ontogeny and Natural Signs
IV. Aggressive Complexities in the Socialization of Fear
V. Acquisitive Complexities in the Socialization of Fear
VI. On Psychological Ignorance
VII. A Moral Education
VIII. Concluding Thought
Notes
References
Index
Prologue: Human Nature and Human Morality: The Challenge of Grounding "the Moral Sense"
1. Introduction
2. The Foundations Laid by Hume in His Moral Philosophy
3. On the Origin of Sympathy and Selfishness: An Initial Determination
4. Unevenly Valorized Binary Oppositions: A Question of Life and Death
5. Hume's Affective Polarity Revisited
6. The Culture/Nature Opposition
From the Perspective of Mythology and Religion
From the Perspective of Patriarchal Symbolism
From the Perspective of Practices in Present-day Western Science
From the Perspective of the Cultural Practice of War
7. Conclusion
Notes
Part I
1 Size, Power, and Death: Constituents in the Making of Human Morality
I. Introduction
II. Size and Power
III. Cultural Translations of Biological Facts
IV. Cultural Transformations and Evolutionary Ethics
V. Immortality Ideologies
VI. Implications
Notes
2 Death and Immortality Ideologies in Western Philosophy
I. Introduction
II. Descartes
On the Purpose of the Meditations as Specified in the Synopsis
Mind as Immaterial Substance
Mind and the Question of Time
III. Heidegger and Immortality Ideologies
IV. Psychological Underpinnings of Immortality Ideologies
V. Derrida's Immortality Reading of Husserl and Derrida's Own Immortality Ideology
VI. The Double: A Further Sign of Derrida's Immortality Ideology
VII. The Last Word and the Ultimate Mortal Question
Notes
3 Real Male-Male Competition
I. Introduction
II. On Natural and Sexual Selection
III. Darwin's Seminal Insights into Male-Male Competition and Their Total Neglect in Current Research
IV. Exemplifications
V. Evolutionary Considerations
VI. A Methodological Imperative and A Closing Apologue
VII. An Afterword
Notes
4 On the Pan-cultural Origins of Evil
I. Introduction
II. The Banality of Evil
III. Affective Elaborations of the Banality of Evil
IV. Toward Pan-cultural Understandings of the Banality of Evil
V. Beginning Evolutionary Considerations
VI. Clarifications Along Motivational Lines
VII. Killing, Death, Fear: Elementary Facts of Human Life
VIII. Warriors and the Heroic Honing of Males
IX. A Finer Analysis of Motivation
X. Broader Socio-Political Understandings of the Heroic Honing of Males: A Return to Evolutionary Considerations
XI. Classic Studies: An Afterword on History and Science
Notes
Part II
5 Empathy
I. Introduction
II. Early Clues and Husserl's Archival Texts
III. Affect Attunement and the Qualitative Nature of Movement
IV. Emotions and Movement
V. Spontaneity
VI. The Kinetic Foundations of "Knowing Other Minds"
VII. Responsivity
VIII. Empathy
IX. A Postscript on Origins, History, and Methodology
Notes
6 Child's Play: A Multidisciplinary Perspective
I. Introduction
II. Rough and Tumble Play
III. Locomotor-Rotational Play
IV. Play and Laughter
V. Morality and Child's Play
Notes
7 On the Nature of Trust
I. Introduction
II. Learning to Trust: Uncovering Affective and Existential Realities
III. A Critical Examination of Luhmann's Thesis of a "Readiness to Trust"
IV. Affective Experience, Human Freedom, and Uncertainty: Deepened Understandings of Trust
Notes
8 The Rationality of Caring: Forging a Genuine Evolutionary Ethics
I. Introduction
II. Transfers of Sense: The Ground of Caring
III. Comsigns: The Evolutionary Basis of Intercorporeal Life
IV. The Rationality of Caring: Laying the Groundwork
V. The Living Import of the "Metaphysically Significant": The Experience of Interconnectedness
VI. The Living Import of the Metaphysically Significant: Interconnectedness, the Principle of Not Harming, and "Difference Removed"
VII. A Closer Look at the First Moral Principle and the Challenge of Human Existence
Notes
Epilogue: Re-Naturing the De-Natured Species: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
I. Introduction
II. Endangered Species
III. Ontogeny and Natural Signs
IV. Aggressive Complexities in the Socialization of Fear
V. Acquisitive Complexities in the Socialization of Fear
VI. On Psychological Ignorance
VII. A Moral Education
VIII. Concluding Thought
Notes
References
Index