Description
Book SynopsisIn this radical reconsideration of ethical reasoning in contemporary European philosophy, Drew Dalton makes the case for an absolutely grounded account of ethical normativity developed from a scientifically informed and purely materialistic metaphysics.
Trade Review“What if nature were evil rather than good or morally neutral? Drew M. Dalton ably defends this counterintuitive hypothesis and rigorously draws out its normative consequences. His critical engagement with the history of continental philosophy is thorough and impressive.” - Andrew Cutrofello, author of
All for Nothing: Hamlet's Negativity“Drew M. Dalton writes with clarity, passion, and purpose, weaving together philosophical, mathematical, and scientific perspectives. Grounded in ethical pessimism, this book offers a truly entropic moral theory that will profoundly illuminate and deeply unsettle readers.” - Shannon M. Mussett, author of
Entropic Philosophy: Chaos, Breakdown, and CreationTable of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction – The Matter of Evil
- Chapter 1 – After Kant: The End of Western Metaphysics and Ethics?
- Chapter 2 – Absolutes within the Bounds of Reason: Speculative Realism and the Return of the Absolute
- Chapter 3 – Towards a Post-Critical Ethics: Meillassoux and Badiou on the Mathematization of Nature and the Possibility of Absolute Metaphysical and Moral Claims
- Chapter 4 – The Science of Entropic Absolutes: The (Dis)Order of Nature
- Chapter 5 – The Value of Science and the Science of Value: Re-Evaluating the Moral Neutrality of Material Reality
- Chapter 6 – Moral Value and Absolute Necessity: Baruch Spinoza's Metaphysical Monism
- Chapter 7 – The Monstrous Will of Nature: Arthur Schopenhauer's Ethical Monism
- Chapter 8 – The Specter of Nihilism: Friedrich Nietzsche's Moral Naturalism
- Chapter 9 – The Ethical Potency of Pessimism: Schopenhauerian Negation, Buddhist Renunciation, and the Political Activism of Philipp Mainländer
- Chapter 10 – New Directions in Pessimism: Cosmic Pessimism, Afropessimism, and Extinctual Nihilism
- Conclusion – From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism: The Evangel of Entropy and the Ethics of Resistance
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
