Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence - Hardcover

Unger, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195075897 ISBN 13: 9780195075892

Verlag: Oxford University Press, 1996

Inhaltsangabe

Points the way to a compassionate new moral philosophy

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Peter Unger is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He is the author of Ignorance (OUP 1975, 2002), Philosophical Relativity (1984, OUP 2002), and Identity, Consciousness, and Value (OUP 1990).

Von der hinteren Coverseite

By sending a few hundred dollars to a group like UNICEF, any well-off person can ensure that fewer poor children die, and that more live reasonably long, worthwhile lives. But even when knowing this, almost all of us send nothing and, among the contributors, most send precious little. What's the moral status of this behavior? To such common cases of letting die, our untutored response is that, while it's not very good, neither is the conduct wrong. How can we best explain this lenient intuitive assessment? In this hard-hitting new book, philosopher Peter Unger argues that, all too often, our moral intuitions about cases are generated not by the basic moral values we hold, but by psychological dispositions that prevent us from reacting in accord with our deep moral commitments. Through a detailed look at how these disorienting tendencies operate, Unger reveals that, on the good morality we already accept, our fatally unhelpful behavior is monstrously wrong. Confronting us with both arresting facts and easily followed instructions for lessening the suffering of youngsters in mortal danger, Living High and Letting Die can help us live the morally decent lives that agree with our wonderfully deep, and deeply wonderful, true moral values.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1996
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0195075897
• ISBN 13: 9780195075892
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 200
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland