Overview
Brings together a wealth of diverse material to document the rise and fall of gentility
Draws an original link between what we think of as 'moral conscience' and the 'ethos of good taste'
Proposes the elite social order of gentility as an important but often overlooked influence behind moral philosophy
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This innovative book proposes that what we think of as “moral conscience” is essentially the exercise of reflective judgment on the goods and ends arising in interpersonal relations, and that such judgment constitutes a form of taste. Through an historical survey Mitchell shows that the constant pendant to taste was an educational and cultural ideal, namely, that of the gentleman, whether he was an ancient Greek citizen-soldier, Roman magistrate, Confucian scholar-bureaucrat, Renaissance courtier, or Victorian grandee.
Mitchell argues that it was neither an ethical doctrine nor methodology that provided the high cultures with moral and political leadership, but rather an elite social order. While the gentry in the traditional sense no longer exists, it nevertheless made significant historical contributions, and insofar as we are concerned to understand the present state of human affairs, we need to grasp the nature and import of said contributions.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: On the Decline of the Genteel Virtues
Book Subtitle: From Gentility to Technocracy
Authors: Jeff Mitchell
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20354-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-20353-5Published: 14 June 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-20356-6Published: 14 August 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-20354-2Published: 31 May 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 292
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Ethics, Moral Philosophy, History of Philosophy