Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Moral Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Britain
  • Cited by 5
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      21 December 2017
      30 November 2017
      ISBN:
      9781108363327
      9781108421096
      9781108431316
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108363327
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.54kg, 296 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.42kg, 297 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, History, Philosophy, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, History, Philosophy, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
    Information

    Book description

    The long eighteenth century is a crucial period in the history of ethics, when our moral relations to God, ourselves and others were minutely examined and our duties, rights and virtues systematically and powerfully presented. Colin Heydt charts the history of practical morality - what we ought to do and to be - from the 1670s, when practical ethics arising from Protestant natural law gained an institutional foothold in England, to early British responses to the French Revolution around 1790. He examines the conventional philosophical positions concerning the content of morality, and utilizes those conventions to reinterpret the work of key figures including Locke, Hume, and Smith. Situating these positions in their thematic and historical contexts, he shows how studying them challenges our assumptions about the originality, intended audience, and aims of philosophical argument during this period. His rich and readable book will appeal to a range of scholars and students.

    Reviews

    '… the development of British moral philosophy in this period is irreducibly complex; Heydt’s book is an immensely valuable contribution to our understanding of it.'

    Tim Stuart-Buttle Source: Journal of Scottish Philosophy

    'Heydt explains clearly - with reference to a very wide variety of primary sources, some well-known, most unfamiliar - how teachers of moral philosophy in Britain in the eighteenth century presented their students with their duties to God, to themselves, and to others. All in all, this is a marvellous book … what especially struck me was the light it sheds on what the majority of moral philosophers in this place and time thought was the real point of their work.'

    James A. Harris Source: Journal of the History of Philosophy

    'Heydt's scholarship is formidable. For those immersed in the literature of the period, this book will further their researches. For those, like this reviewer, who lack background knowledge in which to place the great figures, Heydt supplies a huge amount of information that could not otherwise be obtained except by great (and even tedious) labour. All those interested in [eighteenth-century] ethics are in his debt.'

    David McNaughton Source: Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    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 HTML of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.