A milestone in the study of value in human life and thought, written by one of the world's preeminent living philosophers
The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature is a philosophical investigation of the moral potentialities and sensibilities of human beings, of the meaning of human life, and of the place of death in life. It is an essay in philosophical anthropology: the study of the conceptual framework in terms of which we think about, speak about, and investigate homo sapiens as a social and cultural animal. This volume examines the diversity of values in human life and the place of moral value within the varieties of values. Its subject is the nature of good and evil and our propensity to virtue and vice. Acting as the culmination of five decades of reflection on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, ethics, and human nature, this volume:
- Concludes Hacker's acclaimed Human Nature tetralogy: Human Nature: The Categorial Framework, The Intellectual Powers: A Study of Human Nature, and The Passions: A Study of Human Nature
- Discusses traditional ideas about ethical value and addresses misconceptions held by philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists
The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature is required reading philosophers of mind, ethicists, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and any general reader wanting to understand the nature of value and the place of ethics in human lives.
Values play an essential role in human life. We are moral agents, responsible for our deeds and misdeeds. We pursue pleasure and happiness, and strive to live meaningful lives. The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature is a philosophical investigation of these distinctive aspects of the human condition. In this fourth and final volume of his remarkable study in philosophical anthropology, eminent philosopher P. M. S. Hacker reflects upon moral agency, the pursuit of happiness, and mortality.
The Moral Powers is divided into four thematic sections which explore our moral life and its significance. The first of these investigates the roots of goodness and situates virtue and vice in relation to other categories of value, paying particular attention to the nature of evil and forgiveness. In the second, Hacker considers freedom and responsibility as presupposed by good and wicked deeds, surveying fatalism, determinism, and the logic of responsibility. Subsequent sections relate hedonism and eudaimonism to morality, and the volume concludes with an examination of the meaning of life and the significance of death. Throughout the book, Hacker draws upon plentiful examples in the Western literary canon to enliven and illuminate his arguments. Detailed appendices enrich the text with critical discussions of animal thought and reasoning, diabology, and Hannah Arendt's doctrine of the banality of evil.
The triumphant final instalment in Hacker's acclaimed Human Nature tetralogy, The Moral Powers is essential reading for moral philosophers, philosophers of mind, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, students of literature, and general readers with an interest in understanding who and what we are.
