The Expectations of Morality

The Expectations of Morality
ISBN-10
9401201811
ISBN-13
9789401201810
Category
Philosophy
Pages
161
Language
English
Published
2004-01-01
Publisher
BRILL
Author
Gregory F. Mellema

Description

Moral expectation is a concept with which all of us are well acquainted. Already as children we learn that certain courses of action are expected of us. We are expected to perform certain actions, and we are expected to refrain from other actions. Furthermore, we learn that something is morally wrong with the failure to do what we are morally expected to do.A central theme of this book is that moral expectation should not be confused with moral obligation. While we are morally expected to do everything we are obligated to do, a person can be morally expected to do some things that he or she is not morally obligated to do.Although moral expectation is a familiar notion, it has not been the object of investigation in its own right. In the early chapters Mellema attempts to provide a philosophical account of this familiar notion, distinguish it from other types of expectations, and show how it is possible to form false moral expectations. Subsequent chapters explore the role of moral expectation in agreements between people, analyze ways that people avoid moral expectation, illustrate how groups can have moral expectations, and view moral expectation in the context of our relationship with divine beings. The final chapter provides insight into how moral expectation operates in people’s professional lives.

Other editions

Similar books

  • Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
    By Karen Warren

    Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .

  • Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
    By Karen Casey

    7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.

  • Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
    By Todd May

    28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...

  • Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
    By Todd Ryan

    Bayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.

  • Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
    By John Coakley, Jennifer Todd

    However, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.

  • The Philosopher's Way
    By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.

    Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.

  • Swimmer in a Dark Sea
    By Pierce Timberlake

    Take a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.

  • Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
    By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady

    "This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.

  • Ecological Feminism
    By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-Howe

    The essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...

  • Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
    By Karen Green

    6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...