Cognition Of Value In Aristotle S Ethics

With this new interpretation, Deborah Achtenberg argues that metaphysics is central to ethics for Aristotle and that the ethics can be read on two levels—imprecisely, in terms of its own dialectically grounded and imprecise claims, or in terms of the metaphysical terms and concepts that give the ethics greater articulation and depth. She argues that concepts of value—the good and the beautiful—are central to ethics for Aristotle and that they can be understood in terms of telos where 'telos' can be construed to mean 'enriching limitation' and contrasted with harmful or destructive limitation. Achtenberg argues that the imprecision of ethics for Aristotle results not simply from the fact that ethics has to do with particulars, but more centrally from the fact that it has to do with the value of particulars. She presents new interpretations of a wide variety of passages in Aristotle's metaphysical, physical, psychological, rhetorical, political, and ethical works in support of her argument and compares Aristotle's views to those of Plato, Marcus Aurelius, the Hebrew Bible, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Freud, and twentieth-century object relations theorists. Achtenberg also responds to interpretations of Aristotle's ethics by McDowell, Nussbaum, Sherman, Salkever, Williams, Annas, Irwin, Roche, Gomez-Lobo, Burnyeat, and Anagnostopoulos.

I have much pleasure in writing a preface to Mr. Takatura Ando's book on Aristotle. Apart from his intrinsic importance, as one of the three or four greatest of all philosophers, Aristotle is important on having given for many centuries the greatest influence in moulding the thought of European countries. The language difficulty has no doubt prevented him from exercising very much influence on Japanese thought, and I welcome very warmly to hear that Mr. Ando is about to have his book printed in Japan. I hope it will be widely circulated, as it must certain ly deserve that. W. D. Ross AUTHOR'S FOREWORD In publishing this book, I cannot prohibit myself of reminding the days and nights when it was written. In that era of worldwide madness, Aristotle's philosophy was the only refuge wherein my depressed mind could come to life. It was written bit by bit under all desperate circum stances throughout the war time. My heart was set on the completion of this work while the fate allowed me to live. It was nearly carried out by the end of the war. Having no hope of survival, I buried my manu script in the earth, without however any expectance of a better lot for it.

Ethics for Rational Animals brings to light a novel account of akrasia, practical wisdom, and character virtue through an original and comprehensive study of the moral psychology at the basis of Aristotle's ethics. It argues that practical wisdom is a persuasive rational excellence, that virtue is a listening excellence, and that the ignorance involved in akrasia is in fact a failure of persuasion. Aristotle's moral psychology emerges from this reconstruction as a qualified intellectualism. The view is intellectualistic because it describes practical wisdom as the sort of knowledge that can govern desire and action and akrasia as involving a form of ignorance. However, Aristotle's intellectualism is qualified because practical wisdom goes beyond grasping the truth about the human good, for it must also be able to convey the truth persuasively to non-rational cognition and desires. Through a study of Aristotle's works on ethics, psychology, and biology, Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi shows that there are unexplored ways in which rational and non-rational cognition and desire cooperate and influence one another. These include attention, the capacity of the rational part of the soul to manipulate the non-rational part of the soul, and the capacity to exercise phantasia for speculation, creativity, and research. She argues that, despite being integrated with non-rational cognition and desire, rational cognition of value struggles to control human behaviour and motivation. More specifically, she defends the key thesis that grasping the truth about the human good is not sufficient for humans to regulate action and desire. Therefore, practical wisdom does not merely grasp the truth about the human good, but it controls action and desire because it conveys the truth effectively to the non-rational part of the soul. Conversely, akrasia does not merely involve a lack of epistemic access to the truth about the human good, but a failure to persuade the non-rational part of the soul about it. This study of practical wisdom and akrasia also sheds light on character virtue, which emerges as a practical excellence whose task is to listen to reason.

Should emotions play a role in our decisions, even if they are "just feelings" and not necessarily "imbued with reason" or cognitively penetrated? The author shows that such basic feelings as aversion and attraction can be important normative guides by disrupting engrained habits and beliefs, enabling us to reconsider our ways, which is important due to the ever-changing nature of ethical demands on us. Therefore, these feelings should guide our decisions, even if they are not cognitive. This book fi lls a gap in the philosophy of emotions, ethics, and virtue epistemology.

The "Guise of the Good" thesis - the view that desire, intention, or action) always aims at the good - has received renewed attention in the last twenty years. The book brings together work on various issues related to this thesis both from contemporary and historical perspectives.

Ethics for Rational Animals presents a new account of practical wisdom, virtue, and akrasia (acting against one's best judgement) through an original study of the moral psychology at the basis of Aristotle's ethics. It ranges over his works on ethics, psychology, and biology, and defends a novel view concerning Aristotle's intellectualism.

Artificial intelligence (AI) permeates Google searches, the personal assistants in our smartphones, and is all over our newsfeeds. Watson’s machine learning has already started to revolutionize many important industries including oncology, law, finance, and entertainment. The idea that man is about to increase his immediate surroundings with exponential gains in the level of intelligence over the coming generations is based upon a technological revolution and the potential for artificial superintelligence (ASI). It is within this context that there is a prevailing need for a discussion of its ethical implications. As a Christian ethicist, Paul Golata believes that the need for this conversation to be informed by Christian principles is imperative. ASI is a move toward the proper handling of information. However, how a society interprets and applies this information is actually more pertinent than the raw amount of information it possesses. This important ethical conversation is being led by humanistic thinkers who assume that all of reality is just matter in motion and that mind is nothing more than electrochemical activity in the “wetware” of human brains. The Ethics of Superintelligent Design critically examines and challenges some of the most important trajectories of ASI while upholding the authority and inerrancy of the Bible, the supernatural creation account, a realistic view of the state of humanity, and biblical ethics.