This book is an investigation into the descriptive task of moral philosophy. Nora Hamalainen explores the challenge of providing rich and accurate pictures of the moral conditions, values, virtues, and norms under which people live and have lived, along with relevant knowledge about the human animal and human nature. While modern moral philosophy has focused its energies on normative and metaethical theory, the task of describing, uncovering, and inquiring into moral frameworks and moral practices has mainly been left to social scientists and historians. Nora Hamalainen argues that this division of labour has detrimental consequences for moral philosophy and that a reorientation toward descriptive work is needed in moral philosophy. She traces resources for a descriptive philosophical ethics in the work of four prominent philosophers of the twentieth century: John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault, and Charles Taylor, while also calling on thinkers inspired by them.

About the Author
Nora Hamalainen is a docent (affiliated senior researcher) at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and a research fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, Uppsala, Sweden, 2016-2017. She is the author of Literature and Moral Theory and has co-edited the volume Language, Ethics and Animal Life - Wittgenstein and Beyond (with Niklas Forsberg and Mikel Burley).


Book Information
ISBN 9781137586162
Author Nora Hamalainen
Format Hardback
Page Count 132
Imprint Palgrave Macmillan
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan