Shaping a Modern Ethics - The Humanist Legacy from Nietzsche to Feminism (Paperback)

Is there any such thing as a single ethical system to which all human beings could conceivably subscribe? The short answer is no; and most people, being tolerant, would probably agree with this answer. Yet most people, precisely in being tolerant, also subscribe to an idea of "human rights" which presupposes just such a universal ethics. This basic question of ethics is similarly treacherous when approached on a higher technical level. Specialists have long recognized that Kant's categorical imperative is neither theoretically nor practically tenable. But efforts to revive and repair the Kantian project-including especially the monumental work of Jurgen Habermas-have all themselves been theoretically questionable, while developing a complexity that makes them impractical. Must we then simply do without ethics in the sense of a universal ethical method? By way of a close study of literary and philosophical texts, from Freud to Machiavelli, Benjamin Bennett shows why the failure of a universal or propositional ethics is indeed unavoidable. He uncovers a modern non-propositional ethics that cannot be grasped in a single theoretical move but can only be approached as a collection of instances of a modern ethical "we", three key examples of which Bennett explores in this book: - The "we" of irony, whose speakers share a strictly preter-verbal knowledge which is concealed in their actual utterances - The insistent exclusive "we" of a group that has neither its own physical locality nor even a clear intellectual identity, comparable to the "we" of Jews in the diaspora - The "we" of feminism, a separate "we" from that embracing people who happen to have been born women.

General

Imprint:	Bloomsbury Academic
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	August 2021
Authors:	Benjamin Bennett
Dimensions:	234 x 156 x 17mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	216
ISBN-13:	978-1-350-26231-7
Categories:	Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies > Women's studies > Feminism Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy > General Promotions
LSN:	1-350-26231-5
Barcode:	9781350262317

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