The Eudaemonist Ethics of Hugo Grotius (1583–1645): Pre-Modern Moral Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century?

Abstract Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century makes hardly any reference to the ethics of inequality. Surprisingly, this is an omission shared by most of his critics. In this paper I investigate the literature on which he and his reviewers might have drawn and speculate on the reasons why they did not. I outline the four ‘views of society’ and the related issues in moral philosophy that were presented by Michael Schneider in his book on the distribution of wealth. I then summarise the criticisms of Piketty made by those few reviewers who did show some interest in ethical questions and examine the slightly earlier and quite different case against reducing inequality made by one of these critics, N. Gregory Mankiw. I consider the economic, political and social costs of inequality identified in a book-length study of Piketty’s work by Steven Pressman, and conclude by reflecting on the reasons for the widespread neglect of moral philosophy by mainstream economists.

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Ethics in Community in the Gospel and Letters of John

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198739982.013.21 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jan van der Watt

Keyword(s):

Moral Philosophy ◽

First Century ◽

Ethical Thinking ◽

The Law ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Significant Data

At the beginning of the twenty-first century the question of ethics in John came under renewed consideration. As scholars applied more comprehensive analytical categories to the Gospel and Letters of John significant data became available related to the ethical dynamics of the Gospel. Reading the Gospel as narrative and reflecting on certain socio-historical and theological realities, scholars discovered that the interrelatedness between identity and behaviour is basic to the ethical thinking of John. This identity is expressed in metaphorical terms derived from familial, juridical, friendship, and royal language. The importance of ancient ethically related features, common to ordinary popular moral philosophy, like mimesis or reciprocity, are also highlighted as being part of the ethical dynamics in John. Obviously, the two major foci remain the Law and the love commandment.

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How Ecological Collectives are Morally Considerable

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199941339.013.11 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

J. Baird Callicott

Keyword(s):

Moral Psychology ◽

Environmental Ethics ◽

Moral Philosophy ◽

Ethical Theory ◽

Human Microbiome ◽

First Century ◽

Moral Considerability ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

Evolutionary Moral Psychology ◽

Moral Ontology

Populations, species, biotic communities, ecosystems, landscapes, biomes, and the biosphere are the referents of “ecological collectives.” The essence-accident moral ontology prevailing in twentieth-century moral philosophy cannot, while the theory of moral sentiments originating with Hume, biologized by Darwin, and ecologized by Leopold can, endow ecological collectives with moral considerability. The Hume-Darwin-Leopold approach to environmental ethics has been validated by twenty-first-century evolutionary moral psychology, while the twenty-first-century analysis of the human microbiome has revealed that erstwhile human “individuals” are themselves ecological collectives, thus rendering future ethical theory exclusively concerned with ecological collectives. To reconceptualize ourselves as moral beings in relational, communal, and collective terms is a matter of the greatest urgency for twenty-first century moral philosophy.

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Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Twenty-First Century

Analyse & Kritik ◽

10.1515/auk-2021-0016 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 43 (2) ◽

pp. 309-329

Author(s):

Bruce Kuklick

Keyword(s):

21St Century ◽

Moral Philosophy ◽

American Culture ◽

First Century ◽

Political World ◽

The 1950S ◽

Twenty First Century ◽

The Way

Abstract This essay first traces change in, roughly, the epistemology of the humanities from the 1950s to the 21st century. The second section looks at how the meaning and options in moral philosophy altered in more or less the same period. The last and easily most speculative section examines how these changes permeated American culture, and how professional philosophers responded to the challenges of the new political world they inhabited.

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