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Critique of the Empiricist Explanation of Morality

Is there a Natural Equivalent of Categorical Morality?

  • Book
  • © 1981

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Authors:
  1. C. W. Maris
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Table of contents (17 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-XX
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  2. Introduction

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 1-7

  3. A topography of the empiricist theories of law

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 9-23

  4. Hobbes’s empiricist theory of morality

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 25-39

  5. The empiricist theories of David Hume and Adam Smith

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 41-71

  6. Comte and positivism

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 73-92

  7. Herbert Spencer and evolutionism

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 93-120

  8. Guyau’s philosophy of life

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 121-136

  9. Durkheim’s sociological ethics

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 137-154

  10. Steveson’s and Hare’s analysis of language

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 155-191

  11. Scandinavian realism

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 193-226

  12. Scepticism or empiricism

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 227-239

  13. The problem of the empiricist explanation of normativity: is there a natural equivalent of ‘duty’?

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 241-253

  14. The empiricist justification of the claims of morality

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 255-283

  15. The hierarchy argument as a justification of morality

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 285-336

  16. The congruency argument

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 337-398

  17. The moral game

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 399-448

  18. Conclusion

    • C. W. Maris
    Pages 449-461

  19. Back Matter

    Pages 463-475
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Keywords

About this book

a. 'Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. ' Thus Kant formulates his attitude to morality (Critique of Practical Reason, p. 260). He draws a sharp distinction between these two objects of admiration. The starry sky, he writes, represents my relationship to the natural, empirical world. Moral law, on the other hand, is of a completely different order. It ' . . . begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection (. . . ). ' (p. 260). So Kant sees morality as a separate metaphysical order opposed to the world of empirical phenomena. Human beings belong to both worlds. According to Kant, the personality derives nothing of value from its relationship with the empirical world. His part in the sensuous world of nature places man on a level with any animal which before long must give back to the rest of nature the substances of which it is made.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Critique of the Empiricist Explanation of Morality

  • Book Subtitle: Is there a Natural Equivalent of Categorical Morality?

  • Authors: C. W. Maris

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4430-0

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1981

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-94-017-4432-4Published: 23 August 2014

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-017-4430-0Published: 22 November 2013

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XX, 475

  • Topics: Philosophy of Law

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