The Rational and the Moral Order: The Social Roots of Reason and Morality: No. 18 (Paul Carus Lectures) - Softcover

Baier, Kurt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812692640 ISBN 13: 9780812692648

Publisher: Open Court, 1995

Synopsis

'The Rational and the Moral Order' is a significant book providing a comprehensive theory of morality. The opening chapter is simply marvellous. Baier provides a cogent response to Hume's conundrums on practical reasoning: logical entailment, he argues, is not the correct model of the relation between reasons and that for which they are reasons. Indeed, the giving of reasons is, in part, a social enterprise, and there is no necessary connection between rationality and self-interest.

Just as the giving of reasons is a social enterprise taught to succeeding generations, so too is the moral enterprise, for a moral order is a social order of some sort. It is a social order that encourages a critical stance toward, and permits the correction of, its mores. Moral precepts can be sound or unsound, and yet can be relative to a moral order.

In the concluding chapter Baier shows how his theoretical framework can be used to confront some of the moral problems people face, problems which have also exercised contemporary philosophers. Though there are many philosophers who believe that killing is worse than letting anyone die, there are few that defend the view other than by raw intuition. Baier deploys the resources of his theory of morality in support of this widely shared but poorly defended viewpoints.

"Along the way, Baier deals with virtually all the problems that have taxed moral philosophers for a very long time -- rationality, responsibility, morality's relation to law, the good life, prisoner's dilemma, moral motivation, and others. The Rational and the Moral Order is careful, insightful, and convincing." --Theodore M. Benditt, University of Alabama

About this title

Synopsis:

This book propounds a theory of reason and a theory of morality, advanced by Professor Baier in his APA presidential address and his Carus Lectures. Our possession of reason and our ability to reason depend on our having grown up in a rational order: a social order which engages in the enterprise of reason and, through socialisation, passes on from one generation to the next the knowledge of the recognised general principles of reasoning, the ability to apply them to particular cases, and the methods for further improvement. Two kinds of practical reason can be distinguished, the "self-anchored" and the "society-anchored", the second being by its nature paramount over the first. Much of this is also true of morality because, Baier argues in detail, the moral enterprise is the same as that of society-anchored reason. "The Rational and the Moral Order" sets out original arguments for a number of controversial claims. Moral directives imply that they are themselves sound, and therefore pass a certain test, and can be said to be true or false. Purported conceptions of morality are genuine only if they construe moral judgements as capable of being sound or unsound.

Sound moralities are society-relative, and it can be shown that sound moral reasons are always paramount over reasons of self-interest.

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Court
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0812692640
• ISBN 13: 9780812692648
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 447