Ethics: A Very Short Introduction
Simon Blackburn
Language: English
Pages: 152
ISBN: 0192804421
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures is dogged by scepticism, relativism, hypocrisy, and nihilism, by the fear that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and tribalistic, or competitive and aggressive. In this clear introduction to ethics Simon Blackburn tackles the major moral questions surrounding birth, death, happiness, desire and freedom, showing us how we should think about the meaning of life, and how we should mistrust the soundbite-sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
his desire had been for the welfare of others, or for the preservation of the rain forest, or for the reduction of Third-World debt, the fact that he was neglecting or sacrificing his own interest might have seemed 31 irrelevant. It is what the situation calls for in his eyes, and if we share his standards, perhaps in ours as well. If he spends his fortune or ruins his health on these objects, he may regard himself as only having done what he had to do. There is a trick to be guarded against at
such events whose net effect is a signal that women are weaker or in need of male protection. And this she finds offensive. Of course, the man in turn may find her offence offensive, and up start political-correctness wars and gender wars. The feminist may go in for the kind of hermeneutics we have met, saying that the man unconsciously intends to demean the woman. But that is unnecessary. She need not work at the level of individual psychology. All she has to say is that the man behaves as he
debunking explanation, but a bunking one. Se ven threats t Other central elements of morality don’t even get this kind of explanation. They are less of a human invention than is the device of giving promises. Gratitude to those who have done us good, o ethics sympathy with those in pain or in trouble, and dislike of those who delight in causing pain and trouble, are natural to most of us, and are good things. Almost any ethic will encourage them. Here there is nothing to unmask: these are
to the Formula of Humanity: ‘So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.’ It is not, of course, easy to 106 see exactly what this involves, but the general idea of remembering to respect each other is clearly attractive, and perhaps more practicable than remembering to love each other. Whether we deserve respect purely because of our capacity to make laws to ourselves is a good deal less
Deciphered’, cartoon by Matt Davies. The Journal News/Los Angeles Times Syndicate. 5. ‘The Soul Exploring the Recesses of the Grave’, by William Blake, from The Grave: A Poem, by Robert Blair, 1808. Reproduction by permission of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 6. ‘The Just Upright Man is Laughed to Scorn’, by William Blake, from Illustrations of the Book of Job, 1825. Reproduction by permission of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 7. ‘What Is It that Makes