Imagine a human society, perhaps in pre-history, in which people were generally of a psychological kind with us, had the use of natural language to communicate with one another, but did not have any properly moral concepts in which to exhort one another to meet certain standards and to lodge related claims and complaints. According to The Birth of Ethics, the members of that society would have faced a set of pressures, and made a series of adjustments in response, sufficient to put them within reach of ethical concepts. Without any planning, they would have more or less inevitably evolved a way of using such concepts to articulate desirable patterns of behavior and to hold themselves and one another responsible to those standards. Sooner or later, they would have entered ethical space. While this central claim is developed as a thesis in conjectural history or genealogy, the aim of the exercise is philosophical. Assuming that it explains the emergence of concepts and practices that are more or less equivalent to ours, the story offers us an account of the nature and role of morality. It directs us to the function that ethics plays in human life and alerts us to the character in virtue of which it can serve that function. The emerging view of morality has implications for the standard range of questions in meta-ethics and moral psychology, and enables us to understand why there are divisions in normative ethics like that between consequentialist and Kantian approaches.

About the Author
Philip Pettit is Laurence Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University. He is also Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. Kinch Hoekstra is Chancellor's Professor of Political Science and Law at University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews
The Birth of Ethics is a magesterial contribution to the study of language and morality. * Alex Miller, International Journal of Philosophical Studies *
The Bith of Ethics is a remarkably ambitious and innovative work by one of Australia's most eminent philosophers...: The ultimate success of a book that seeks to change the methods of moral philosophy can only be judged many years after publication. The Birth of Ethics aims to clear a tenable path that leads away from moral scepticism, and for that reason, I believe, it deserves attention. * David Neil, Australian Book Review *
Pettit contends that morality is essential for human self-realization as persons. In this regard, his own speculation about the genealogy of morals is markedly different from a long line of philosophical speculations about the origin or morals traceable to Plato and routed through standard relativistic and conventionalist theories ... Recommended. * C. S. Johnson, CHOICE *
A very interesting, stimulating and thought-provoking account of the possible origins of morality. * Harry Witzthum, Metapsychology *
The book is conceptually rich. Any moral philosopher will find much to ponder here ... Pettit is here trying out a novel, multifaceted, and systematic approach to ethics, from which moral philosophers, whether or not they are ultimately persuaded, will have much to learn. * David Phillips, Notre Dame Philosophical Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197567449
Author Philip Pettit
Format Paperback
Page Count 400
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 726g
Dimensions(mm) 208mm * 140mm * 25mm