Reid

2019 ◽  
pp. 132-136
Author(s):  
Roger Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Joseph Butler ◽  
Rational Egoism

This chapter discusses the views on self-interest and morality of the Scottish ‘common-sense’ philosopher Thomas Reid (1710–96). The influence of Joseph Butler on Reid’s conception of human nature is explained, and the similarities and differences between their positions elucidated. Reid’s arguments against rational egoism are discussed. His view that virtue is a component of well-being is outlined, and it is suggested that his position on the pleasures of virtue may be said to be somewhat exaggerated. Reid’s appeal to the afterlife to guarantee complete overlap between self-interest and morality is explained.

Butler

2019 ◽  
pp. 92-109
Author(s):  
Roger Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
First Order ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Joseph Butler ◽  
Moral Philosophers ◽  
Reward And Punishment

This chapter discusses the views on self-interest and morality of Bishop Joseph Butler (1692–1752), often said to be one of the very greatest British moral philosophers of the eighteenth century. The chapter focuses particularly on Butler’s famous Fifteen Sermons. Butler’s view on human nature and the supremacy of conscience is explained. Discussion follows of his views on how to understand self-love and benevolence. His first-order ethics is shown to be both welfarist and, in effect, non-utilitarian. His arguments for the harmony of self-love and beneficence, including those depending on the idea of divine reward and punishment in the afterlife, are critically elucidated.

Self-Interest and Virtue

1997 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 226-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neera K. Badhwar
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Self Interest

The Aristotelian view that the moral virtues–the virtues of character informed by practical wisdom–are essential to an individual's happiness, and are thus in an individual's self-interest, has been little discussed outside of purely scholarly contexts. With a few exceptions, contemporary philosophers have tended to be suspicious of Aristotle's claims about human nature and the nature of rationality and happiness (eudaimonia). But recent scholarship has offered an interpretation of the basic elements of Aristotle's views of human nature and happiness, and of reason and virtue, that brings them more into line with common-sense thinking and with contemporary philosophical and empirical psychology. This makes it fruitful to reexamine the question of the role of virtue in self-interest.

Moving Beyond Dehumanisation and Greed in the Light of African Economic Ethics – A Statement

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 74-96
Author(s):  
Munyaradzi Murove
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
African Society ◽  
Economic Ethics ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Modern Economic

AbstractThis article argues that the popular term self-interest which is used in economic and political discourses can be used interchangeably with greed. Tracing the origins of the term greed from antiquity through the early Christian era, it is also argued that classical modern economic and political theorists justified and absolved greed when they replaced it with the word self-interest. It was argued by modern economists and political philosophers that the pursuit of self-interest was integral to human nature, and also indispensable to the attainment and increase of wealth. Contemporary economists have also absolved greed when they constructed an ideal homo economicus as solely a utility maximiser who is only concerned with his or her well-being without taking into account the well-being of others. In an African society where greed is primarily seen as dehumanising, I argue that egalitarian economic programmes that have been implemented by many postcolonial African governments should be seen as an expression of moral protest against greed.

Sacrifice Regained

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Psychological Egoism ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Common ◽  
Good For

Does being virtuous make you happy? This book examines the answers to this ancient question provided by the so-called ‘British Moralists’, from about 1650 for the next two hundred years. This involves elucidating their views on happiness (self-interest, or well-being) and on virtue (or morality), in order to bring out the relation of each to the other. Themes ran through many of these writers: psychological egoism, evaluative hedonism, and—after Thomas Hobbes—the acceptance of self-standing moral reasons. But there are exceptions, and even those taking the standard views adopt them for very different reasons and express them in various ways. As the ancients tended to believe that virtue and happiness largely, perhaps entirely, coincide, so these modern authors are inclined to accept posthumous reward and punishment. Both positions sit uneasily with the common-sense idea that a person can truly sacrifice their own good for the sake of morality or for others, and the book shows that David Hume—a hedonist whose ethics made no appeal to the afterlife—was the first major British moralist to allow for, indeed to recommend, such self-sacrifice. Morality and well-being of course remain central to modern ethics, and this book demonstrates how much there is to learn from this remarkable group of philosophers.

The Legacy of Reid's Common Sense in Analytic Epistemology

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Mark Boespflug
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
The Common

The common sense that heavily informs the epistemology of Thomas Reid has been recently hailed as instructive with regard to some of the most fundamental issues in epistemology by a burgeoning segment of analytic epistemologists. These admirers of Reid may be called dogmatists. I highlight three ways in which Reid's approach has been a model to be imitated in the estimation of dogmatists. First, common sense propositions are taken to be the benchmarks of epistemology inasmuch as they constitute paradigm cases of knowledge. Second, dogmatists follow Reid in taking common sense propositions to provide boundaries for philosophical theorizing. Inasmuch as philosophical theorizing leads one to deny a common sense proposition, such theorizing is stepping outside of the bounds of what it can or should do. Third, dogmatists follow Reid in focusing heavily on the problem of skepticism and by responding to it by refusing to answer the demand for a meta-justification that the skeptic wants.

Thomas Reid on Causation and Scientific Explanation

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Barrantes ◽  
Juan M. Durán
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Common

We argue that there is no tension between Reid's description of science and his claim that science is based on the principles of common sense. For Reid, science is rooted in common sense since it is based on the (common sense) idea that fixed laws govern nature. This, however, does not contradict his view that the scientific notions of causation and explanation are fundamentally different from their common sense counterparts. After discussing these points, we dispute with Cobb's ( Cobb 2010 ) and Benbaji's ( Benbaji 2003 ) interpretations of Reid's views on causation and explanation. Finally, we present Reid's views from the perspective of the contemporary debate on scientific explanation.

The Skeptic and The Madman: The Proto‐Pragmatism of Thomas Reid

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Lundestad
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
The Other ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Other Hand

Even though the philosophy of common sense is not justifi able as such, the assump- tion upon which it rests, namely that there are things which we are not in position to doubt is correct. The reason why Thomas Reid was unable to bring this assumption out in a justifi able manner is that his views, both on knowledge and nature, are to be considered dogmatic. American pragmatists such as Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey on the other hand, may be seen as offering us a ‘critical’ and post-Darwinian philosophy of common sense.

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

Foundations From Quantum Physics for a Normative Theory of Administration and Governance

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
R. Philip Brown
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Prime Meridian ◽  
Organizational Purpose ◽  
Organizing Principles

The modem American ethos is a brand of Lockean individualism gone wrong that now embraces rapacious self-interest as its prime meridian. A new ethicalmodel is necessary to combat this radical, soulless, and excessively particularistic form of individualism. The author proposes a journeyman philosophy of organization and governance for citizen and administrative practitioner alike based upon concepts from quantum theory. This normative model of administration, called authentic individualism, has certain ramifications for a more reflexive, creative and unorthodox approach to public administration. All institutions and organizations are systems guided by general organizing principles that should discard the humans as a resource model, make employee well-being an organizational purpose, encourage humans toward a sense of moral meaning in life and work, recognize legitimate leadership as emerging from the people who make up the organization, and fulfill obligations to the community that supports them and makes them successful.

The “New Empire of Common Sense”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul B. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Joseph Priestley ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

Although the rise of Scottish common sense philosophy was one of the most important intellectual developments of the Enlightenment, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the reception of Scottish common sense philosophy in the Atlantic world during the second half of the eighteenth century. This chapter focuses on the British context in the period 1764–93, and examines published responses to James Oswald, James Beattie, and, especially, Thomas Reid. The chapter contextualizes the polemics of Joseph Priestley against the three Scots and argues that it was Joseph Berington rather than Priestley who was the first critic to claim that the appeal to common sense was the defining feature of “the Scotch school” of philosophy. It also shows that Reid was widely acknowledged to be the founder and most accomplished exponent of the “school”, whereas Beattie and Oswald were typically dismissed as being derivative thinkers.

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