Oxford University Press, USA
Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality
Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality
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Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality asks what happens when the sense that I must collides with the realization that I can't. Bringing together philosophical and empirical work in moral psychology, Lisa Tessman here examines moral requirements that are non-negotiable and
that contravene the principle that ought implies can. In some cases, it is because two non-negotiable requirements conflict that one of them becomes impossible to satisfy, and yet remains binding. In other cases, performing a particular action may be non-negotiably required -- even if it is
impossible -- because not performing the action is unthinkable. After offering both conceptual and empirical explanations of the experience of impossible moral requirements and the ensuing failures to fulfill them, Tessman considers what to make of such experience, and in particular, what role such experience has in the construction of value and of moral
authority. According to the constructivist account that the book proposes, some moral requirements can be authoritative even when they are impossible to fulfill. Tessman points out a tendency to not acknowledge the difficulties that impossible moral requirements and unavoidable moral failures create in moral
life, and traces this tendency through several different literatures, from scholarship on Holocaust testimony to discussions of ideal and nonideal theory, from theories of supererogation to debates about moral demandingness and to feminist care ethics.
Author: Lisa Tessman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 12/01/2014
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780199396146
Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2015
that contravene the principle that ought implies can. In some cases, it is because two non-negotiable requirements conflict that one of them becomes impossible to satisfy, and yet remains binding. In other cases, performing a particular action may be non-negotiably required -- even if it is
impossible -- because not performing the action is unthinkable. After offering both conceptual and empirical explanations of the experience of impossible moral requirements and the ensuing failures to fulfill them, Tessman considers what to make of such experience, and in particular, what role such experience has in the construction of value and of moral
authority. According to the constructivist account that the book proposes, some moral requirements can be authoritative even when they are impossible to fulfill. Tessman points out a tendency to not acknowledge the difficulties that impossible moral requirements and unavoidable moral failures create in moral
life, and traces this tendency through several different literatures, from scholarship on Holocaust testimony to discussions of ideal and nonideal theory, from theories of supererogation to debates about moral demandingness and to feminist care ethics.
Author: Lisa Tessman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 12/01/2014
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780199396146
Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2015
About the Author
Lisa Tessman is Professor of Philosophy at Binghamton University. Her previous publications have been in ethics, feminist philosophy, and related areas. Her more recent work integrates philosophical ethics with empirical moral psychology. She is the author of Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles.
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