Viable Values

Tara Smith

doi:10.5771/9781442211919

Summary

Viable Values examines the most basic foundations of value and morality, demonstrating the shortcomings of major traditional views and proposing that morality is grounded in the objective requirements of human life. Smith argues that human beings need to be moral in order to live, explaining how life is the standard of morality, how flourishing is the proper end and reward of living morally, and how an intelligent egoism is the path to flourishing.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2000
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8476-9760-1
ISBN-Online: 978-1-4422-1191-9
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 205
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
1 Introduction No access Pages 1 - 12
1. A Misconceived Question? No access
2. Historical Answers No access
3. 1. The Case for Intuitionism No access
  2. Critique No access
4. 1. The Case for Contractarianism No access
  2. 1. Dubious Conceptions of Morality and Interest No access
5. 1. The Case for Rationalism No access
  2. 1. Why Be Rational? No access
    2. What Is Rational Action? No access
    3. Justification of Action No access
    4. The Rationality of Ends No access
    5. Rationalism's Collapse No access
1. What Is Intrinsic Value? No access
2. The Evidence for Intrinsic Value No access
3. The Regress Argument No access
4. Artificial Alternatives No access
1. 1. 1. Imagining Immortality No access
  2. Life Makes the Concept of Value Necessary No access
  3. Life as the Goal and the Standard of Value No access
  4. Value as the Basis for Normative Ethics No access
2. 1. 1. Optional Values No access
  2. Value Is Based in Facts No access
3. 1. Is Life a Value, or Is Life the Source of Value? No access
  2. How Does a Person Choose Life? No access
  3. Is the Choice of Life Justified? No access
  4. Does the Choice to Live Undermine the Objectivity of Value? No access
  5. Living without a Life-Based Code No access
1. What Flourishing Is No access
2. 1. 1. The Quality-Quantity Distinction No access
    2. The Needs-Wants Distinction No access
  2. 1. Suicide No access
3. Flourishing Is Objective No access
1. 1. Prudence No access
2. 1. Self-Interest's Spiritual Dimension No access
  2. 1. The Egoist Needs Principles No access
    2. The Status of Ill-Begotten Gains No access
3. 1. 1. Value Is Contextual No access
    2. Value Is Created No access
  2. Rational Interests Do Not Conflict No access
Selected List of Works Consulted No access Pages 193 - 198
Index No access Pages 199 - 204
About the Author No access Pages 205 - 205