Beyond The New Morality

First published in 1974, with a second, revised edition in 1980, Beyond the New Morality has been used widely in introductory ethics courses at the undergraduate level. The book appeals to those who want something not overburdened with theory, and presented in a contemporary idiom. In this third edition of the now standard classroom text, Grisez and Shaw retain the best elements of the earlier versions, including their clear, straightforward presentation and use of nontechnical language. Although the basic approach, content, and organization remain substantially the same, the new edition does develop and amend some aspects of the theory. For example, the community dimension of morality is brought out more clearly and the first principle of morality is now formulated more accurately in terms of willing in line with integral human fulfillment.

"Morality and religion have failed because they are based on duplicity and fantasy. We need something new." This bold statement is the driving force behind Richard Garner's "Beyond Morality." In his book, Garner presents an insightful defense of moral error theory-the idea that our moral thought and discourse is systemically flawed. Establishing his argument with a discerning survey of historical and contemporary moral beliefs from around the world, Garner critically evaluates the plausibility of these beliefs and ultimately finds them wanting. In response, Garner suggests that humanity must "get beyond morality" by rejecting traditional language and thought about good and bad, right and wrong. He encourages readers to adhere to an alternative system of thought: "informed, compassionate amoralism," a blend of compassion, non-duplicity, and clarity of language that Garner believes will nurture our capability for tolerance, creation, and cooperation. By abandoning illusion and learning to listen to others and ourselves, Garner insists that society can and will find harmony. Richard Garner's, "Beyond Morality" delves deep into the thoughts and codes that inform the actions of humanity and offers a solution to the embedded error of these forces. An essential text for students of philosophy, "Beyond Morality" provides a groundwork for improving human action and relationships. Richard Garner is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Ohio State University. "One can discern the influence of the moral skeptic upon philosophy for as far back as one can gather any solid evidence at all, yet all too often the skeptical case has been articulated by opponents only with an eye to its refutation. All the more important it is, then, that forms of moral skepticism are sympathetically developed and advocated in the intellectual community. When first published in 1994, "Beyond Morality" was one of very few books that intelligently championed a radical type of moral skepticism; here Garner threw down the gauntlet in a firm, level-headed, and engaging manner. In so doing, he showed amoralism to have many attractions and a rich cultural history. Garner's position remains very much a live option in metaethics, and the importance of "Beyond Morality" has not diminished." -Richard Joyce, Professor of Philosophy, Victoria University of Wellington "This work is a tremendous achievement. The author's erudition is overwhelming, yet it is expressed without overwhelming the reader. He goes easily from modern to ancient thought. Some of the most difficult areas of thought are explored with such clarity that readers unfamiliar with them can grasp them readily. One of the chief virtues of this highly informative book is that it sets the problems of ethics in the context of wider areas of thought and brings them down to earth. Garner's main thesis, referred to as amoralism, is extremely important, not only to philosophy, but to all popular thinking about ethics, both theoretical and applied. He has done a magnificent job defending this important theme. This is a landmark work." -Richard Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Rochester "Garner is one of the first philosophers since Nietzsche to take seriously the idea that 'morality' might be nothing more than a sham. . . . In his hands, 'amoralism' turns out to be more appealing and humane than many thinkers' versions of 'morality'!" -James Rachels, Professor of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Paul Tillich's classic work confronts the age-old question of how the moral is related to the religious. In particular, Tillich addresses the conflict between reason-determined ethics and faith-determined ethics and shows that neither is dependent on the other but that each alone is inadequate. Instead, Tillich reveals to us the gift that came with the arrival of Christ: a new reality that offers a power of being in which we can participate and out of which true thought and right action are possible. The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic works in the field.

A PopSugar Best Book of the Year To call these unsettling times is an understatement: our political leaders are less and less respectable; in business, cheating, lying, and stealing are hazily defined; and in daily life, technology permits us to act in ways inconceivable without it. Yet somehow, people still draw lines between what is acceptable and what is not. In Behaving Badly, Eden Collinsworth speaks with a wide range of figures—from experts to everyday people—to parse out the parameters of modern morality. In her quest, she squares off with, among others, a neuroscientist who explains why we’re not necessarily designed to be good; a CEO fired for blowing the whistle on his multinational corporation; and the cheerfully unrepen­tant founder of a website facilitating affairs for married people. Fearless, timely, and always thought-provoking, Behaving Badly takes us on an unforgettable journey through the treacherous territory of right and wrong.

Is moral goodness really so desirable in the way that its proponents through the ages would like us to believe? For instance, in our time, there is even this latest version of the popular moral idea shared by many, when Dalai Lama suggested that "[w]e need these human values [of compassion and affection]....Even without religion, ...we have the capacity to promote these things." (WK 2009) The naivety of this popular moral idea can be contrasted with an opposing (critical) idea advocated not long ago by Sigmund Freud (1966), who once wrote that "men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness. As a result, their neighbor is for them...someone who tempts them to satisfy their aggressiveness on him, to exploit his capacity for work without compensation, to use him sexually without his consent, to seize his possessions, to humiliate him, to cause him pain, to torture and to kill him. Homo homini lupus." Contrary to the two opposing sides of this battle for the high moral ground, morality and immorality are neither possible nor desirable to the extent that their respective ideologues would like us to believe. But one should not misunderstand this challenge as a suggestion that ethics is a worthless field of study, or that other fields of study (related to ethics) like political philosophy, moral psychology, social studies, theology, or even international relations should be dismissed. Needless to stress, neither of these two extreme views is reasonable either. Instead, this book provides an alternative (better) way to understand the nature of ethics, especially in relation to morality and immorality-while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). This book offers a new theory to transcend the existing approaches in the literature on ethics in a way not thought of before. This seminal project is to fundamentally alter the way that we think about ethics, from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its "post-human" fate.

"Beyond Religion" is a stirring call to move beyond religion for the guidance to improve human life on individual, community, and global levels--including a guided meditation practice for cultivating key human values.

With the ending of the strategic certainties of the Cold War, the need for moral clarity over when, where and how to start, conduct and conclude war has never been greater. There has been a recent revival of interest in the just war tradition. But can a medieval theory help us answer twenty-first century security concerns? David Fisher explores how just war thinking can and should be developed to provide such guidance. His in-depth study examines philosophical challenges to just war thinking, including those posed by moral scepticism and relativism. It explores the nature and grounds of moral reasoning; the relation between public and private morality; and how just war teaching needs to be refashioned to provide practical guidance not just to politicians and generals but to ordinary service people. The complexity and difficulty of moral decision-making requires a new ethical approach - here characterised as virtuous consequentialism - that recognises the importance of both the internal quality and external effects of agency; and of the moral principles and virtues needed to enact them. Having reinforced the key tenets of just war thinking, Fisher uses these to address contemporary security issues, including the changing nature of war, military pre-emption and torture, the morality of the Iraq war, and humanitarian intervention. He concludes that the just war tradition provides not only a robust but an indispensable guide to resolve the security challenges of the twenty-first century.