The Variety of Values
Essays on Morality, Meaning, and Love
Published on 12. February 2015
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-19-533280-3 (ISBN)
Description
For over thirty years Susan Wolf has been writing about moral and nonmoral values and the relation between them. This volume collects Wolf's most important essays on the topics of morality, love, and meaning, ranging from her classic essay "Moral Saints" to her most recent "The Importance of Love."
Wolf's essays warn us against the common tendency to classify values in terms of a dichotomy that contrasts the personal, self-interested, or egoistic with the impersonal, altruistic or moral. On Wolf's view, this tendency ignores or distorts the significance of such values as love, beauty, and truth, and neglects the importance of meaningfulness as a dimension of the good life.
These essays show us how a self-conscious recognition of the variety of values leads to new understandings of the point, the content, and the limits of morality and to new ways of thinking about happiness and well-being.
Wolf's essays warn us against the common tendency to classify values in terms of a dichotomy that contrasts the personal, self-interested, or egoistic with the impersonal, altruistic or moral. On Wolf's view, this tendency ignores or distorts the significance of such values as love, beauty, and truth, and neglects the importance of meaningfulness as a dimension of the good life.
These essays show us how a self-conscious recognition of the variety of values leads to new understandings of the point, the content, and the limits of morality and to new ways of thinking about happiness and well-being.
Reviews / Votes
The Variety of Values is a valuable contribution to contemporary ethics suitable for both professional philosophers and a more general readership. * Lucas Scripter, The Philosophical Quarterly *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
581 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-533280-3 (9780195332803)
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
Book
02/2015
Oxford University Press Inc
€88.40
Shipment within 15-20 days
E-Book
11/2014
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€42.99
Available for download
Person
Susan Wolf is the Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her work focuses chiefly on ethics and its close relations in philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, political philosophy, and aesthetics. She is author of Freedom Within Reason (OUP, 1990) and Meaning in Life and Why It Matters (Princeton, 2010), and co-editor, with Christopher Grau of Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, and Fiction (OUP, 2014).
Content
1. Introduction ; Part I: Moral and Nonmoral Values ; 2. Moral Saints ; 3. Morality and Partiality ; 4. Morality and the View From Here ; 5. Good-for-Nothings ; Part II: Meaning in Life ; 6. The Meanings of Lives ; 7. Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life ; 8. Meaning and Morality ; Part III: Love ; 9. One Thought Too Many: Love, Morality, and the Ordering of Commitment ; 10. Loving Attention: Lessons in Love from The Philadelphia Story ; 11. The Importance of Love ; Part IV: The Concept of Duty ; 12. Above and Below the Line of Duty ; 13. The Role of Rules ; 14. Moral Obligations and Social Commands