Strong Evaluation without Moral Sources : : On Charles Taylor's Philosophical Anthropology and Ethics / / Arto Laitinen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DGBA Backlist Complete English Language 2000-2014 PART1
• VerfasserIn: Laitinen, Arto,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2008]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Language: English
• Series: Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie , 86
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (385 p.)

Charles Taylor (1931- ) is one of the leading living philosophers. This is the first extended study on the key notions of his views in philosophical anthropology and ethical theory. Firstly, Laitinen clarifies, qualifies and defends Taylor's thesis that transcendental arguments show that personal understandings concerning ethical and other values (so called "strong evaluation") is necessary, in different ways, for human agency, selfhood, identity and personhood. Secondly, Laitinen defends and develops in various ways Taylor's value realism. Finally, the book criticizes Taylor's view that it is necessary to identify and locate a constitutive source of value, such as God, Nature or Human Reason. Taylor relies heavily on this claim in his accounts of moral life, modern identity and, most recently, secularisation. Laitinen argues that the whole notion of constitutive moral source should be dropped – Taylor's views concerning strong evaluation and value realism are distorted by the question of constitutive "moral sources".

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. What is strong evaluation? A reading and -- reconstruction of Taylor’s central concept -- 2. Human agents as strong evaluators -- 3. Personhood as strongly valued: a strong -- evaluator as an end in itself -- 4. Does identity consist of strong -- evaluations? -- 5. The engaged view and the reality of -- value -- 6. Diversity and universality -- 7. Does moral reality need sources? -- 8. Evaluative beliefs and knowledge -- 9. Moral realism and personal variations -- 10. Conclusion -- Backmatter