Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-68c7f8b79f-j6k2s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-12-31T15:24:11.533Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

6 - Moral difference

Craig Taylor
Affiliation:
Flinders University, Australia
Get access

Summary

At the end of the previous chapter I suggested that moral reflection involves more than a grasp of moral concepts or theories and the ability to make moral judgements on that basis: specifically, that it involved the capacity to ask certain questions of oneself. My focus there was on the many ways in which our own character (and weakness) may remain dark to us and how serious moral reflection requires a certain capacity for self-scrutiny. But an aspect of such questioning that I did not so much highlight there is the essentially personal nature of such reflections on at least some occasions. What a person is attempting to find out about in such reflection on such occasions, I shall argue, is something about themselves, about their particular character. But the point here is not, or so I shall now argue, restricted to finding out the ways in which we might fall short of the character we imagine ourselves to possess. Beyond this, such reflection may involve finding out the kind of moral character we possess. To talk in terms of kinds of character is to suggest that in a given situation agents with different moral characters might appropriately reach different moral judgements about how to act. In this chapter I shall advance the case for thinking that moral reflection and judgement might, at least sometimes, be personal in this more radical sense.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Moralism
A Study ofa Vice
, pp. 109 - 130
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Moral difference
  • Craig Taylor, Flinders University, Australia
  • Book: Moralism
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654956.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Moral difference
  • Craig Taylor, Flinders University, Australia
  • Book: Moralism
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654956.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Moral difference
  • Craig Taylor, Flinders University, Australia
  • Book: Moralism
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654956.007
Available formats
×