Description
Book SynopsisThere has recently been a good deal of interest in moral sentimentalism, but most of that interest has been exclusively either in metaethical questions about the meaning of moral terms or in normative issues about benevolence and/or caring and their place in morality. In Moral Sentimentalism Michael Slote attempts to deal with both sorts of issues and to do so, primarily, in terms of the notion or phenomenon of empathy. Hume sought to do something like this over two centuries ago, though he didn''t have the term empathy and used sympathy instead; and in effect Slote is seeking to give moral sentimentalism a second wind in and for contemporary circumstances. By relying systematically on empathy in its account of normative morality and in what it has to say about the meaning of moral vocabulary, Moral Sentimentalism offers a unified overall ethical picture that can then be tested against ethical rationalism. Rationalism has recently dominated the scene in ethics, but by showing how senti
Table of ContentsPreface ; Acknowledgements ; Introduction ; 1. Empathy: Cement of the Moral Universe ; 2. Moral Approval and Disapproval ; 3. Empathy in Moral Judgment ; 4. A New Kind of Reference-Fixing ; 5. How to Derive "Ought" from "Is" ; 6. The Use of Moral Judgments ; 7. Between Motive and Morality ; 8. Paternalism and Patriarchy ; 9. Justice ; 10. Empathy, Objectivity, and Rationality ; Conclusion ; Index
