Moral Foundations

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Preface

One: The Science of Ethics

1      Delimitation of the Subject

2      Can Ethics Be Classified as a Science?

3      The Divisions of Ethics

4      Problems of Historical Ethics

5      The Early Flowering of Moral Ideals

6      The Slower Advance of General Practice

7      Analytic Ethics, Its Limitations and Value

Two: The Moral Quality of the Cosmos

1      The Objective Criterion of Morality

2      Examples of Continuing Harmonious Association

3      Harmonization

4      Moral Endeavor a Special Mode of Harmonization

Three: The Protomorality of Animals

1      Transition from Cosmic Moralness to Human Morality

2      Can the Conduct of Animals Ever Be Designated as Moral?

3      Intraspecific and Interspecific Morality

4      Respect for Property and Stealing

5      Relations of the Sexes

6      The Settlement of Disputes without Violence

7      Parental Behavior and the Question of Duty

8      Animal Protomorality and Human Morality

Four: Instinct, Reason, and Morality

1      Appetites and Aversions the Springs of All Voluntary Activity

2      A Comparison of Instinctive and Rational Guidance

3      How Instinct Limits Harmful Activity

4      How Reason Increases the Range of Harmful Conduct

5      Disruptive Effects of Nascent Rationality upon Human Life

6      The Fallacy of Naturalism

7      Ultimate Moral Advantages of Reason over Instinct

Five: The Structure of Moral Relations

1      The Nature of Prohibited Acts

2      The Reciprocity of Enduring Relations

3      Reciprocal Relations between Organisms of Different Species

4      Direct and Cyclic Reciprocity

5      Charity, Apparent and Real

6      Analysis of Some Reciprocally Beneficial Relationships

7      Virtue as the Stubborn Adherence to the Form of Moral Relations

8      Virtue in Daily Life and Heroic Predicaments

Six: The Innate Foundations of Morality

1      Origin of the Self-regarding Virtues in the Stresses of Animal Life

2      Origin of Benevolence in Parental Solicitude

3      Comparison of Self-regarding and Other-regarding Motives

4      Adumbrations of Sympathy in Nonhuman Animals

5      Analysis of Sympathy

6      The Complex Mental Processes Involved in True Sympathy

7      The Flowering of Sympathy

8      Love as a Moral Force

9      Reason and the Universality of Moral Imperatives

Seven: Conscience and Moral Intuitions

1      The Role of Conscience in the Moral Life

2      Two Conditions of a Quiet Conscience

3      Our Vital Need of Harmony in All Its Aspects

4      Why Awareness of Moral Lapses Brings More Acute Distress Than Disharmonies of Other Sorts

5      The Innate Preference for Harmony as the Intuitive Foundation of Morality

6      Consequent Preference for the Wider and More Perfect Harmony

Eight: Pleasures and Happiness

1    Primary Bodily Pleasures and Pains

2    Primary Mental Pleasures and Pains

3    Transition from Pleasure and Happiness

4      Instinctive Happiness and Its Vulnerability

5      The Foundations of Stoic Happiness

6      Psychological Truths Underlying Stoicism

7      Proposed Solutions of the Problem of Proportioning Happiness to Virtue

8      Final Assessment of Stoic Happiness

9      The Relation of Pleasures to Happiness

10   Is a Narrow Egoism Compatible with Happiness?

11   We Can Deny Ourselves Pleasures but Not Happiness

Nine: The Determination of Choice

1      Contrasts Between Choice and Other Modes of Determination

2      Mental Faculties Involved in Choosing

3      Choice a Unique Mode of Determination

4      The Common Measure of All Motives

5      The Ultimate Ground of Choice

6      The Compelling Power of the More Harmonious Pattern

7      Congruence of the Psychological Fact and the Moral Obligation

Ten: Moral Freedom

1      Meanings of “Freedom”

2      Confusions Which Support the Notion that Volitions are Indeterminate

3      Freedom as the Perfect Expression of Our Original Nature

4      Discussion of Certain Misunderstandings

5      Free Will and Moral Worth

6      Free Will and Self-improvement

7      Free Will and Responsibility

Eleven: Right and Wrong

1      The Importance of Analyzing Moral Terms

2      The Intrinsic Probability That Moral Notions Are Definable

3      Four Criteria of Rightness

4      The Meaning of “Right”

Twelve: Goodness

1      The Meaning of “Good” Revealed by Its Uses

2      “Good” Not an Indefinable Notion

3      Perfect Goodness

Thirteen: Ethical Judgments and Social Structure

1      Motives, Intentions, and Deeds

2      The Order of Judging Motives and Deeds

3      Characteristics of Ethical Judgments

4      The Moral Solution of Conflicts Necessitates Social Structure

5      Moral Qualities of Socially Limited and of Unlimited Relevance

6      Some Principles of Judgment

7      Veracity Considered in Relation to Social Structure

8      The Esthetic Appeal of Morality

Fourteen: Duty

1      The Relation of “Duty” to “Right” and “Good”

2      The Vital Significance of Duty

3      Duty as the Pressure of the Whole on Its Parts

4      Duty and Spontaneous Inclination

5      Verbal Signs Which Arouse the Feeling of Obligation

6      The Sense of Duty as a Conservative Rather than a Progressive Force

7      Plain-Duties, and the Possibility of Discharging Them in Full

8      Over-Duties and Their Source

9      Aberrations of the Sense of Responsibility

Fifteen: The Relativity of Good and Evil

1      Good and Evil Concepts That Arise in a Developing World

2      The Goodness of Living Things

3      Attempts At an Absolute Separation of Humanity

4      Moral Relativism and Its Transcendence

Sixteen: Characteristics of Ethical Systems

1      The Concept of an Ethic

2      Vital Impulses the Points of Departure of Every Ethic

3      Single Motive Systems Exemplified by That of Hobbes

4      The Value of Monistic Systems

5      Limitations and Dangers of Monistic Systems: the Ethics of Spinoza

6      Diverse Methods of Guiding Behavior

7      Diverse Sanctions of Conduct

8      The Plasticity of Ethical Systems

9      The Varying Scope of Ethical Systems

10   The Propagation and Survival of Ethical Systems

Seventeen: The Foundations of a Universal Ethic

1      The Necessity of Recognizing All-pertinent Motives

2      Virtues Derived from the Will to Live

3      Virtues Derived from Parental Impulses

4      Love of Beauty and Respect for Form as Moral Motives

5      Conscience the Cement of the Moral Structure

6      The Intuitive Element in Every Satisfying Ethical Doctrine

7      The Cosmological Principle and Its Correspondence with the Intuitive Principle

8      The Correspondence between Goodness and Happiness

9      The Correspondence between Self-regarding and Altruistic Motives

10   Should the Number of Individuals or Their Quality Be Our First Consideration?

11   Two Coordinate Aspirations of the Human Spirit

12   Summary

Notes

Index