Practical Guilt: Moral Dilemmas, Emotions, and Social Norms / Edition 1

by P. S. Greenspan

Overview

P.S. Greenspan uses the treatment of moral dilemmas as the basis for an alternative view of the structure of ethics and its relation to human psychology. Greenspan argues that dilemmas may be regarded as possible consequences of a set of social rules designed to be simple enough to be teachable. Where these rules prohibit action either way, the problematic motivational force of dilemmas can be explained by reference to the role of emotion as a substitute for action. Guilt is seen as a natural but contested candidate for the sort of emotional sanction for wrongdoing that might supply motivational force in dilemmas. It functions as a way of preserving virtue against moral luck. Greenspan defends guilt in the face of dilemmas on the basis of a "nonjudgmentalist" account of emotions that accepts guilt as appropriate even in some cases of unavoidable wrongdoing. In its treatment of the role of emotion in ethics the argument of the book outlines a new way of packing motivational force into moral meaning that allows for a socially based version of moral realism. Since, on the proposed account, emotions underpin the teaching of moral language, human emotional capacities impose constraints on the nature of a viable moral code and thus affect the content of morality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195090901
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/12/1995
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

University of Maryland

Table of Contents

	Introduction	3
I.	Between the Horns
1.	Defusing Dilemmas	9
1.	Moral Dilemmas and Motivational Force	11
2.	Motivating Moral "Ought,"	23
2.	Practical Oughts and Prohibitions	29
1.	Practical Oughts in Conflict	30
2.	Deontic Strength and Value	41
3.	Problems for Practical Ought-Systems	52
3.	Motivational Foundations of Conflict	66
1.	Moral Realism and Practical Phenomenology	67
2.	Internalist Dilemmas	77
3.	Between the Horns	90
II.	Sensibility and Standpoints
4.	Moral Residues	109
1.	The Moral Significance of Guilt	111
2.	Guilt as an Identificatory Mechanism	126
3.	Contrary-to-Duty "Ought-to-Feel,"	136
5.	Unavoidable Guilt	151
1.	Subjective Guilt and Responsibility	152
2.	Perspectival Appropriateness	166
3.	Objective Guilt and Wrong	176
6.	Basing Ethics on Emotion	187
1.	The Motivational Model	188
2.	Sensibility and Standpoints	198
	Notes	211
	Bibliography	235
	Index	243

Editorial Reviews

"...an excellent work for upper level courses or graduate school."—Professor and President Frank R. Campbell, Averett College

"Highly recommended."—Choice

From the Publisher