Lawrence BlumCambridge University PressEdition: 1st Edition, 7/5/2010EAN 9780521436199, ISBN10: 0521436192Paperback, 288 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cmLanguage: EnglishMost contemporary moral philosophy is concerned with issues of rationality, universality, impartiality, and principle. By contrast Laurence Blum is concerned with the psychology of moral agency. The essays in this collection examine the moral import of emotion, motivation, judgment, perception, and group identifications, and explore how all these psychic capacities contribute to a morally good life. Blum takes up the challenge of Iris Murdoch to articulate a vision of moral excellence that provides a worthy aspiration for human beings. Drawing on accounts of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust Blum argues that impartial principle can mislead us about the variety of forms of moral excellence.Part I. Particularity1. Introduction2. Iris Murdoch and the domain of the moral3. Moral perception and particularityPart II. Moral Excellence4. Moral exemplarsreflections on Scindler, the Trocmes, and others5. Vocation, friendship, communitylimitations of the personal/impersonal framework6. Altruism and the moral value of rescueResisting persecution, racism, and genocide7. Virtue and communityPart III. The Morality of Care8. Compassion9. Moral development and conceptions of morality10. Gilligan and Kohlbergimplications for moral theory11. Gilligan's two voices and the moral status of group identity.
