
The View from Here
On Affirmation, Attachment, and the Limits of Regret
R. Jay Wallace(Author)
Oxford University Press Inc
Published on 25. April 2013
Book
Hardback
282 pages
978-0-19-994135-3 (ISBN)
Description
Must we always later regret actions that were wrong for us to perform at the time? Can there ever be good reason to affirm things in the past that we know were unfortunate? In this original work of moral philosophy, R. Jay Wallace shows that the standpoint from which we look back on our lives is shaped by our present attachments-to persons, to the projects that imbue our lives with meaning, and to life itself. Through a distinctive "affirmation dynamic", these attachments commit us to affirming the necessary conditions of their objects. The result is that we are sometimes unable to regret events and circumstances that were originally unjustified or otherwise somehow objectionable.
Wallace traces these themes through a range of examples. A teenage girl makes an ill-advised decision to conceive a child - but her love for the child once it has been born makes it impossible for her to regret that earlier decision. The painter Paul Gauguin abandons his family to pursue his true artistic calling (and eventual life project) in Tahiti--which means he cannot truly regret his abdication of familial responsibility. The View from Here offers new interpretations of these classic cases, challenging their treatment by Bernard Williams and others. Another example is the "bourgeois predicament": we are committed to affirming the regrettable social inequalities that make possible the expensive activities that give our lives meaning. Generalizing from such situations, Wallace defends the view that our attachments inevitably commit us to affirming historical conditions that we cannot regard as worthy of being affirmed--a modest form of nihilism.
Wallace traces these themes through a range of examples. A teenage girl makes an ill-advised decision to conceive a child - but her love for the child once it has been born makes it impossible for her to regret that earlier decision. The painter Paul Gauguin abandons his family to pursue his true artistic calling (and eventual life project) in Tahiti--which means he cannot truly regret his abdication of familial responsibility. The View from Here offers new interpretations of these classic cases, challenging their treatment by Bernard Williams and others. Another example is the "bourgeois predicament": we are committed to affirming the regrettable social inequalities that make possible the expensive activities that give our lives meaning. Generalizing from such situations, Wallace defends the view that our attachments inevitably commit us to affirming historical conditions that we cannot regard as worthy of being affirmed--a modest form of nihilism.
Reviews / Votes
This interesting, careful and occasionally outrageous book explores the complex interaction and competition between the attitudes of affirmation and regret that are almost inevitable as we look back on our lives and celebrate of deplore the conditions and choices that have made us what we are - that underlie our successes and failures, and our personal attachments. R. Jay Wallace's aims are very broad and his conclusions radical, but he begins by examining closely several examples of the phenomenon, real and imaginary, that are already familiar from recent philosophical literature. * Thomas Nagel, London Review of Books *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
532 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-994135-3 (9780199941353)
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
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2018
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€27.49
Available for download

Book
02/2017
Oxford University Press Inc
€56.70
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
03/2013
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€27.49
Available for download
Person
R. Jay Wallace is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. His publications include Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments (1994), Normativity and the Will (OUP, 2006), and numerous papers on moral psychology, the theory of practical reason, the philosophy of responsibility, and other topics in philosophical ethics.
Author
Professor of PhilosophyProfessor of Philosophy, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
Content
TABLE OF CONTENTS ; Acknowledgments ; Chapter One: Introduction ; Chapter Two: Looking Backward (with Feeling) ; 2.1 "For Sorrow There is No Remedy." ; 2.2 Regret and Agency ; 2.3 Preferences about the Past ; 2.4 Regret and Affirmation ; Chapter Three: Affirming the Unacceptable ; 3.1 The Young Girl's Child ; 3.2 Affirmation and Justification ; 3.3 Mixed Feelings ; 3.4 Meaning, Disability, and Politics ; Chapter Four: Luck, Justification, and Moral Complaint ; 4.1 Williams' Gauguin ; 4.2 Affirming One's Life ; 4.3 Affirmation, Justification, and Morality ; 4.4 Deep and Shallow Ambivalence ; Chapter Five: The Bourgeois Predicament ; 5.1 Meaning and its Conditions ; 5.2 Obstacles to Affirmation ; 5.3 The Bourgeois Predicament ; 5.4 Redemption, Withdrawal, Denial ; Chapter Six: A Somewhat Pessimistic Conclusion