Self-Determination: The Ethics of Action, Volume 1
Thomas Pink
Abstract
This book on self-determination and a companion second volume on normativity, The Ethics of Action: Normativity, will examine the significance of action within ethics. How does action and omission—what we do or omit doing—matter in morality? Does action have a special moral importance of its own? Or, as Hume and others have thought, is action of no independent significance in its own right, but simply a sign and expression of what really does matter, such as our motivation and character? And is there a special kind of moral standard, such as obligation or duty, that applies only to actions and ... More
This book on self-determination and a companion second volume on normativity, The Ethics of Action: Normativity, will examine the significance of action within ethics. How does action and omission—what we do or omit doing—matter in morality? Does action have a special moral importance of its own? Or, as Hume and others have thought, is action of no independent significance in its own right, but simply a sign and expression of what really does matter, such as our motivation and character? And is there a special kind of moral standard, such as obligation or duty, that applies only to actions and omissions? This first volume on self-determination considers action and its place in human psychology. Does action differ from other parts of human psychology in a way that might make it special in moral terms? The book considers how actions are related to the beliefs, desires, and other mental states that move us to act, and whether, where actions are concerned, we possess a genuine power of self-determination—a power to determine for ourselves what we do.
Keywords:
action,
freedom,
power,
reason,
motivation,
responsibility,
self-determination,
Hobbes,
Hume
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199272754 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2017 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272754.001.0001 |
