No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The July 1992 issue of The Journal of Value Inquiry investigates the ground and nature of moral good and evil. During the course of its inquiries, a wide selection of views that have been held in the history of philosophy are considered. Whether this be so because the past lives eternally in the present, or because a philosophic investigation of values includes the perennial along with the unique -are among the many questions for our readers to ponder. The outstanding interpretations and evaluations of past thinkers that this issue offers, however, are not solely of interest to the historian. Our authors ask, moreover, what remains true or useful in or about these ethical theories for present-day reflection as well. Among the profound philosophical quesions that they raise are: Are ethical values grounded in the metaphysical structure of the universe? Do they manifest themselves, as well, in a supreme value or rule? Are such values to be distinguished further into positive expressions of various degrees? Do they also include evil and its forms? If so grounded, do ethical values transcend our world of change and flux? Or do they exist, instead, within the structure of ordinary experience only? Supposing, moreover, that we possess a common humanity, may we not choose among a plurality of objective and, at times, incompatible human values? If moral values are not metaphysically grounded, must we adopt, on the one hand, a Nietzschean aesthetic, wherein values are continually redefined in the service of emerging new life forms? Or, on the other hand, are we left with a Thrasymachean relativism, according to which, ultimately, might makes right -whether the might be that of an omnipotent deity or the power of finite human beings? Finally, does the dialogue between the ethical absolutists and relativists reduce to perennial manifestations of opposing forces of "the one" and "the many" that occur within every era, with no ultimate resolution of their opposition possible?
In "On the Metaphysical Presuppositions of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics," Deborah Achtenberg asks whether Aristotle's ethics depends on an
๐ SIMILAR VOLUMES