Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics

Description

David Hume's essay Of Moral Prejudices offers a spirited defense of "all the most endearing sentiments of the hearts, all the most useful biases and instincts, which can govern a human creature," against the onslaught of philosophers who would, on the pretext of reforming prejudices and errors, endeavor after perfection. Following Hume's example, Annette Baier delivers an appeal for our fundamental moral notions to be governed not by rules and codes but by trust: a moral prejudice. Along the way, she gives us the best feminist philosophy there is. In this enterprise, Baier takes her inspiration from Hume, whom she calls the "woman's moral philosopher" because he held that "corrected (sometimes rule-corrected) sympathy, not law-discerning reason, is the fundamental moral capacity," a quality normally associated with the feminine rather than with the masculine. Male moral philosophers have consistently avoided the whole question of love, for example. Baier entreats us to reject both the Platonic idea that we have a true self and the Kantian idea that it is rational to be moral, a notion that makes obligation central to ethics. Baier's topics range from violence to love, from cruelty to justice, and are linked by a preoccupation with vulnerability and inequality of vulnerability, with trust and distrust of equals, with cooperation and isolation. Throughout, she is concerned with the theme of women's roles. In this provocative exploration of the implications of trusting to trust rather than proscription, Baier interweaves anecdote and autobiography with readings of Hume and Kant to produce an entertaining, challenging, and highly readable book 1. What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory? -- 2. The Need for More than Justice -- 3. Unsafe Loves -- 4. Hume, the Women's Moral Theorist? -- 5. Hume, the Reflective Women's Epistemologist? -- 6. Trust and Antitrust -- 7. Trust and Its Vulnerabilities -- 8. Sustaining Trust -- 9. Trusting People -- 10. Violent Demonstrations -- 11. Claims, Rights, Responsibilities -- 12. How Can Individualists Share Responsibility? -- 13. Moralism and Cruelty: Reflections on Hume and Kant -- 14. Ethics in Many Different Voices