The Metaphysics of Good and Evil

Description

The Metaphysics of Good and Evil is the first, full-length contemporary defence, from the perspective of analytic philosophy, of the Scholastic theory of good and evil - the theory of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and most medieval and Thomistic philosophers. Goodness is analysed asobedience to nature. Evil is analysed as theprivationof goodness. Goodness, surprisingly, is found in the non-living world, but in the living world it takes on a special character. The book analyses various kinds of goodness, showing how they fit into the Scholastic theory. The privation theory of evil is given its most comprehensive contemporary defence, including an account of truthmakers for truths of privation and an analysis of how causation by privation should be understood. In the end, all evil isdeviance- a departure from the goodness prescribed by a thing's essential nature. 　 Key Features: 　 Offers a comprehensive defence of a venerable metaphysical theory, conducted using the concepts and methods of analytic philosophy. Revives a much neglected approach to the question of good and evil in their most general nature. Shows how Aristotelian-Thomistic theory has more than historical relevance to a fundamental philosophical issue, but can be applied in a way that is both defensible and yet accessible to the modern philosopher. Provides what, for the Scholastic philosopher, is arguably the only solid metaphysical foundation for a separate treatment of the origins of morality. Half Title......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 6 Dedication......Page 7 Contents......Page 8 Preface and Acknowledgements......Page 11 Introduction......Page 22 Part I  A Theory of Good as Fulfilment......Page 40 1  The Basic Theory: Appetites and Fulfilment......Page 41 1.1  Actuality and potentiality......Page 42 1.2  Appetite as potentiality: the tendencies of things......Page 47 1.3  Seven objections to goodness as fulfilment......Page 58 1.4  Fulfilment as non-arbitrariness: the principle of finality......Page 77 2.1  Goodness as neither essentially moral nor essentially organic......Page 89 2.2  The attributive/predicative debate......Page 94 2.3  Final and contributory goodness......Page 110 2.4  Goodness ‘in a way’......Page 128 3.1  Instantiation and approximation......Page 141 3.2  Continuation in existence as a tendency......Page 150 3.3  The objection from radioactivity......Page 160 3.4  False analogies: inertia and conservation......Page 166 3.5  Is existence itself good?......Page 174 4.1  From inorganic to organic goodness......Page 200 4.2  The good in the vegetative appetites......Page 204 4.3  The good in the sensitive appetites......Page 217 4.4  Sexual cannibalism and related objections......Page 230 4.5  The good in the rational appetite......Page 242 Part II A Theory of Evil as Privation......Page 270 5.1  Privation and need......Page 271 5.2  Privation and evil......Page 284 5.3  Some painful objections......Page 297 5.4  Objections from morality: malice and punishment......Page 313 6.1  Truthmaker theory and negative truths......Page 331 6.2  Absences......Page 346 6.3  The totality theory......Page 354 6.4  The exclusion theory......Page 360 6.5  Truthmakers for privative truths......Page 374 7.1  The fundamental problem......Page 398 7.2  Absence causation......Page 401 7.3  Privative causal truths......Page 417 7.4  Armstrong's analysis: the contrast......Page 429 8.1  Non-negotiable truths about evil......Page 445 8.2  Why it matters that evil is conceptual being......Page 455 8.3  The reality of evil in the good......Page 464 8.4  The mystery of evil......Page 474 Bibliography......Page 486 Index......Page 502