Sympathy

It is widely held in contemporary moral philosophy that moral agency must be explained in terms of some more basic account of human nature. This book presents a fundamental challenge to this view. Specifically, it argues that sympathy, understood as an immediate and unthinking response to another's suffering, plays a constitutive role in our conception of what it is to be human, and specifically in that conception of human life on which anything we might call a moral life depends.

Auteur

CRAIG TAYLOR is Research Fellow at the University of Sydney. He has contributed a number of articles to learned publications.

Contenu

Acknowledgements Introduction Sympathy Rational Altruism Character Moral Incapacity An Attitude Towards a Soul Sympathy and Other Primitive Responses Sympathy and Understanding Appendix: A Utilitarian Theory? Notes Bibliography Index