Colin Marshall offers a ground-up defense of objective morality, drawing inspiration from a wide range of philosophers, including John Locke, Arthur Schopenhauer, Iris Murdoch, Nel Noddings, and David Lewis. Marshall's core claim is compassion is our capacity to perceive other creatures' pains, pleasures, and desires. Non-compassionate people are therefore perceptually lacking, regardless of how much factual knowledge they might have. Marshall argues that people who do have this form of compassion thereby fit a familiar paradigm of moral goodness. His argument involves the identification of an epistemic good which Marshall dubs "being in touch". To be in touch with some property of a thing requires experiencing it in a way that reveals that property - that is, experiencing it as it is in itself. Only compassion, Marshall argues, lets us be in touch with others' motivational mental properties. This conclusion about compassion has two important metaethical consequences. First, it generates an answer to the question "Why be moral?", which has been a central philosophical concern since Plato. Second, it provides the keystone for a novel form of moral realism. This form of moral realism has a distinctive set of virtues: it is anti-relativist, naturalist, and able to identify a necessary connection between moral representation and motivation. The view also implies that there is an epistemic asymmetry between virtuous and vicious agents, according to which only morally good people can fully face reality.

About the Author
Colin Marshall is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington, Seattle. Raised in Pojoaque, New Mexico, he received his BA from Reed College and his PhD from New York University. From 2011 through 2013 he was the Gerry Higgins Lecturer in the History of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne.

Reviews
Marshall's book is an impressive achievement. Not only is it a case study in how philosophers can make contemporary use of seemingly disparate historicalmaterial (his use of the early modern theory of ideas in defending his epistemological account of compassion is especially impressive), but it brings together novel argumentation spanning topics large and small across both normative and metaethics. * Joshua Blanchard, Journal of Moral Philosophy *
systematic, ambitious, and philosophically rich . . . Marshall's exhilarating book [is] required reading for anyone interested in moral motivation and the moral and epistemic significance of compassion * Adam Lerner, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
this excellent work [...] is informed by impressive range of philosophical sources [...] carefully thought through and rigorously argued [...] a terrific achievement * Justin Steinberg, Brooklyn College *
full of insights * Michael Slote, University of Miami *
it is a bold and daring attempt to wrestle with the challenges that face any metaethics based on compassion, and it is thoroughly recommended reading for anyone interested in the prospects of such a view. * Luke Roelofs, Australasian Journal of Philosophy *
Compassionate Moral Realism is a tightly argued defence of moral realism based in compassion. It constitutes an ambitious and novel take on central ethical issues that I will be excited to see the development of. * Heidi Maibom, University of Cincinnati *
Recommended. * CHOICE *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198809685
Author Colin Marshall
Format Hardback
Page Count 270
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 164mm * 25mm