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4 - Overweening morality

Craig Taylor
Affiliation:
Flinders University, Australia
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Summary

So far I have been focusing on particular moralistic judgements, on the nature of such judgements (Chapters 1 and 2) and about what such judgements suggest about the character of those who make them (Chapter 3). So my concern so far has been with certain ways in which particular moral judgements may be flawed, or suggest character flaws, in various ways. However, there is in fact a more radical position we might take according to which the focus of criticism is not particular moral judgements but rather the whole practice of moral judgement as we might understand it. According to this view, and again in some pejorative sense, what is moralistic is a certain conception (or conceptions) of morality. The focus of criticism here is not just one particular moral theory, but our idea of morality construed much more broadly. So, Bernard Williams has argued in a number of places against what he calls “the morality system”, which, with its focus on a particular notion of moral obligation, he takes as excluding other ethical considerations. For Williams there is a contrast between morality, by which he means the morality system, and ethics, which he understands much more broadly and which is inclusive of ideas that we owe to a much older ethical viewpoint that comes to us from the ancient Greeks. Williams's hope is that by pointing out what he takes to be the many mistakes in morality he might motivate a conception of the ethical that is consistent with living a fully human life, something the morality system as he sees it makes problematic.

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Type
Chapter
Information
Moralism
A Study ofa Vice
, pp. 57 - 82
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2011

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  • Overweening morality
  • Craig Taylor, Flinders University, Australia
  • Book: Moralism
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654956.005
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  • Overweening morality
  • Craig Taylor, Flinders University, Australia
  • Book: Moralism
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654956.005
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.

  • Overweening morality
  • Craig Taylor, Flinders University, Australia
  • Book: Moralism
  • Online publication: 05 February 2013
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/UPO9781844654956.005
Available formats
×