Conscience in Moral Life : Rethinking How Our Convictions Structure Self and Society

Howard, Jason J.

Rowman & Littlefield International（2014/03発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 226 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781783480111
• DDC分類 170

Full Description

The notion of conscience remains one of the most widely used moral concepts and a cornerstone of ordinary moral thinking. This book explores where this widespread confidence in conscience stems from, examining the history of conscience as a moral concept and its characteristic moral phenomenology.
Jason Howard provides a comprehensive reassessment of the function of conscience in moral life, detailing along the way the manifold problems that arise when we believe our conscience is more reliable than is actually warranted.

The result is a step-by-step evaluation of our most accepted assumptions. Howard goes on to argue, from a phenomenological perspective, that conscience is indispensable for understanding moral experience. He capitalizes on a dialectical perspective developed by Hegel and Ricoeur, in which conscience is seen as the recognition of the other, and integrates this with work in the philosophy of emotion, arguing that conscience is best seen in terms of the function it serves in moderating the moral emotions of shame, guilt and pride.

Contents

Introduction: Why Conscience Needs to Be Reassessed / 1. The History of Conscience and the Rise of the Faculty Conception / 2. The Problem with the Faculty View of Conscience / 3. Moral Emotions and the Connection to Conscience / 4. Conscience and Our Convictions / 5. Conscience as Legal Right and the Loss of the Common Good / 6. The Retrieval of Conscience for Moral Life / Conclusion / Bibliography / Index