Moral Philosophy

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Moral philosophy, says Maritain, has suffered gravely from becoming confused with moral theology. So many confusions seem to have been inherited from the past that most moral philosophy today confines itself to analysis and avoids 'large' views; in some areas it is only with difficulty distinguished from sociology. His aim here is to clear the ground for a new moral discipline, based upon reason still, but at once traditional and modern. While his frame of reference is still to St. Thomas Aquinas, he does not consider we find in him a complete answer to all our questions, rather that a moral philosophy conceived in the light of his general principles can illuminate our attempted solution of problems that had not even been raised in the Middle Ages.
So he makes a survey of a number of moral systems of the past, his concern being not just antiquarian, but to extract the principles of abiding value for modern thinkers. He starts with the Greeks, recognising that what once could be... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Moral philosophy, says Maritain, has suffered gravely from becoming confused with moral theology. So many confusions seem to have been inherited from the past that most moral philosophy today confines itself to analysis and avoids 'large' views; in some areas it is only with difficulty distinguished from sociology. His aim here is to clear the ground for a new moral discipline, based upon reason still, but at once traditional and modern. While his frame of reference is still to St. Thomas Aquinas, he does not consider we find in him a complete answer to all our questions, rather that a moral philosophy conceived in the light of his general principles can illuminate our attempted solution of problems that had not even been raised in the Middle Ages.
So he makes a survey of a number of moral systems of the past, his concern being not just antiquarian, but to extract the principles of abiding value for modern thinkers. He starts with the Greeks, recognising that what once could be regarded as part of the civilised heritage can no longer be assumed. He takes a serious look at Kant and treats at length of the unfashionable Hegel. He is generous in his treatment of the Positivism of Conite and discusses with sympathy the open and closed moral systems of writers like Kierkegaard and Sartre. He is also specially well-informed on Bergson and Dewey, writers who have had a great influence in France and the United States but are little known in this country. moral philosophy is a book for everyone who is seriously concerned about man and his place in society, a book which will help those who are anxious to make up their minds about immediate issues by setting the pressing questions of personal and corporate morality against a wide and generous background. Nourished for centuries on moral notions which were a fusion of Christian insights with classical ideals, our present attitude to what is right and what is wrong is enfeebled by the removal of these traditional props. It is to help us in this situation that Maritain makes this survey of the past, a survey which exists only to be a useful contribution to the solution of the real issues of the present. It should do much to remove the imputation that a concern for the ideas of the past is a fatal barrier to the perception of twentieth century issues. Less formidable for the general reader than the degrees of knowledge, it is certainly a work of comparable importance. Vissza