Moral Vision

Moral Thinking is critical of mainstream academic ethics for being pretty nearly stuck on Kant and Mill, for neglecting nonviolence (Gandhi and King), for nearly neglecting the women's movement (it is not yet central to most ethics texts and courses), for largely neglecting the anti-racism movement (also marginal in academic ethics), and for almost totally neglecting the anti-imperialism movement. Moral Vision suggests an integrated approach that includes these often-neglected elements and also recognizes aesthetic and experiential dimensions of ethical reflection. This book will be of interest to anyone wondering what philosophy may contribute to our contemporary struggle with conflicting values and value collisions, personal as well as cultural.

What is moral reasoning? Are we being reasonable when we make moral decisions if we cannot supply compelling arguments, criteria, necessary and sufficient conditions, decisive empirical evidence and the like? In Moral Vision, Duane L. Cady critiques the contemporary inclination to model reason after textbook natural science, noting that our values are not conclusions of proofs or derivations but frameworks in which such reasoning may take place, frameworks that we struggle to understand and explain. Cady goes on to suggest a rich conception of reason beyond that of stereotypical science, one that reflects aesthetic, historical, experiential, and pluralistic aspects of moral thinking, one that widens and deepens descriptions of how moral thinking typically happens. This book will be of interest to anyone wondering what philosophy may contribute to our contemporary struggle with conflicting values and value collisions, both personal as well as cultural.

Chapter 1 Preface
Chapter 2 Ethics and Rationality
Chapter 3 Moral Frameworks
Chapter 4 Experience in Context
Chapter 5 Aesthetic Aspects of Ethical Thought
Chapter 6 Morals and Metaphors
Chapter 7 Ethics and Pluralism
Chapter 8 Moral Thinking
Chapter 9 Afterword: Diversity, Relativism, and Nonviolence