Product details
- ISBN 9780791438985
- Weight: 408g
- Publication Date: 23 Jul 1998
- Publisher: State University of New York Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Drawing on implications from ethics, theology, law, politics, and education, this book argues that we can decide what is right by describing particular cases in detail, without the aid of ethical theories and principles.
Living Without Philosophy argues that we do not need ethical theories, rules, and principles to decide what is right. Instead, particular cases can be judged by a detailed description of the relevant circumstances. When our judgments differ, we can decide how to act by deliberating under fair conditions. The author provides both a philosophical argument for this position and readings of literary texts in which moral theorists are portrayed as concrete characters. These works include Plato's Protagoras, selections from the Gospels and Dante, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, the debate between Erasmus and Luther, Erasmus's Praise of Folly, Shakespeare's King Lear, Nabokov's Lolita, and Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Thus, Levine offers essentially a moral argument for the humanities, discussing the implications not only for ethics, but also for theology, law, politics, and education.
Peter Levine is a Research Scholar at the Institute for Public Policy, University of Maryland. He is also the author of Something to Hide, and Nietzsche and the Modern Crisis of the Humanities, also published by SUNY Press.
