Description
Book SynopsisCultures around the world have regarded self-fulfillment as the ultimate goal of human striving and as the fundamental test of the goodness of a human life. The ideal has also been criticized, however, as egotistical and value-neutral. This book seeks to overcome these and other arguments.
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Table of ContentsPreface ix Chapter 1. The Ideal of Self-Fulfillment 3 1.1. Self-Fulfillment: Pro and Con 3 1.2. Some Terminological Distinctions 6 1.3. Self-Fulfillment as Actualization of Potentialities 8 1.4. Two Modes of Self-Fulfillment 13 Chapter 2. Self-Fulfillment as Aspiration-Fulfillment 19 2.1. What Are Aspirations? 19 2.2. How Does One Get Aspirations? 30 2.3. How Does One Fulfill One's Aspirations? 37 2.4. To What Does One and Should One Aspire? 46 2.5. Three Types of Morality 52 Chapter 3. Capacity-Fulfillment and Universalist Morality 59 3.1. Capacities and Their Fulfillment 59 3.2. Weighing Values to Determine the Best Capacities: The Purposive Ranking Thesis 66 3.3. Is Reason the Best of Human Capacities? 71 3.4. The Rational Justification of Universalist Morality 77 3.5. Universalist Morality and Fulfillment of the Reasonable Self 87 3.6. Self-Respect and Diverse Ways of Life 93 3.7. The Moral Criticism of Aspirations 101 Chapter 4. Capacity-Fulfillment and the Good Life 107 4.1. Freedom and Well-Being as the Best of Practical Capacities 107 4.2. Personalist Morality as Based upon Freedom 112 4.3. Identity and Alienation 115 4.4. Personalist Morality as Based upon Well-Being 120 4.5. Virtues and Culture 125 4.6. Duties to Oneself 134 4.7. Particularist Morality: Family, Love, Friendship 140 4.8. Particularist Morality: Community, Country, Culture 151 Chapter 5. Ultimate Values, Rights, and Reason 159 5.1. Human Dignity as the Basis of Rights 159 5.2. Spirituality as Self-Transcendent Excellence 174 5.3. The Meaning of Life 182 5.4. Individual and Social Contexts of Self-Fulfillment 189 5.5. On Varieties of Self-Fulfillment 200 5.6. Human Rights as Bases of Self-Fulfillment 204 5.7. Are Self-Fulfillment and Rights Compatible? 215 5.8. Self-Fulfillment and Rational Agency 217 Index 229
