David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Jack Alan Reynolds
Learn more about PhilPapers
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 22 (2):87-105 (2001)
After criticizing three common conceptions of therelationship between practical ethics and ethical theory, analternative modeled on Aristotle's conception of the relationshipbetween rhetoric and philosophical ethics is explored. Thisaccount is unique in that it neither denigrates the project ofsearching for an adequate comprehensive ethical theory norsubordinates practical ethics to that project. Because the purpose of practical ethics, on this view, is tosecure the cooperation of other persons in a way that respectstheir status as free and equal, it seeks to influence thejudgments of others by providing them with reasons that areaccessible to their own understanding. On this account, theindependence of practical ethics is rooted in an appreciation ofthe constraints that non-ideal circumstances place on the rolethat the philosophically refined premises of moral theory canplay in such public deliberations. Practical and philosophicalethics are united, not by shared theoretical frameworks orprinciples, but by the need to exercise intelligently the sameintellectual and affective capacities. They are separated, notby the particularity or generality of their starting points, butby their responsiveness to the practical problem of facilitatingsound normative deliberations among persons as we find them,under non-ideal circumstances.
|Keywords||Aristotle ethical theory moral reasoning particularism rhetoric|
|Categories||categorize this paper)|
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server
Configure custom proxy (use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy)
|Through your library|
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
John K. Davis (2007). Intuition and the Junctures of Judgment in Decision Procedures for Clinical Ethics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 28 (1):1-30.
Deon Rossouw (2008). Practising Applied Ethics with Philosophical Integrity: The Case of Business Ethics. Business Ethics 17 (2):161–170.
Similar books and articles
Peter Lloyd & Ibo van de Poel (2008). Designing Games to Teach Ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics 14 (3):433-447.
Kimberley Brownlee (2009). Normative Principles and Practical Ethics: A Response to O'Neill. Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (3):231-237.
Elijah Millgram (2005). Ethics Done Right: Practical Reasoning as a Foundation for Moral Theory. Cambridge University Press.
Michael Davis (1998). Sidgwick's Impractical Ethics. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 12 (2):153-159.
Michael S. Pritchard (1998). Sidgwick's Practical Ethics. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 12 (2):147-151.
Alex John London (2000). Amenable to Reason: Aristotle's Rhetoric and the Moral Psychology of Practical Ethics. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10 (4):287-305.
Added to index2009-01-28
Total downloads41 ( #98,162 of 1,792,064 )
Recent downloads (6 months)26 ( #31,329 of 1,792,064 )
How can I increase my downloads?