- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Clarendon Press; New Ed edition (2 Oct 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0199266301
- ISBN-13: 978-0199266302
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.7 x 1.3 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,408,424 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Review
"Jeanette Kennett has written a nicely balanced, informative and well-argued book on contemporary thought about agency and responsibility....There are several...pearls in this slim volume, such as Kennett's discussion of 'moral luck'...It is also worth mentioning that Kennett provides real life examples, rather than bizarre thought experiments or abstract logic to illuminate her points. Her approach is as democratic as are her claims about moral reasoning. There are several points where the author's warmth and commitment to a moral life come through while she manages the rigors of analytic philosophy. It is this final point that I find most appealing in this book. If one reads between the lines, you get the feeling that Kennett believes that moral health, mental health and the proper use of agency are, if not the same, intimately entwined. This book can be seen as both a primer on the subject as well as an explication of Kennett's theory."--Metapsychology (Mental Help Net's Booksto
Product Description
Is it ever possible for people to act freely and intentionally against their better judgement? Is it ever possible to act in opposition to one's strongest desire? If either of these questions are answered in the negative, the common-sense distinctions between recklessness, weakness of will and compulsion collapse. This would threaten our ordinary notion of self-control and undermine our practice of holding each other responsible for moral failure. So a clear and plausible account of how weakness of will and self-control are possible is of great practical significance. Taking the problem of weakness of will as her starting point, Jeanette Kennett builds an admirably comprehensive and integrated account of moral agency which gives a central place to the capacity for self-control. Her account of the exercise and limits of self-control vindicates the common-sense distinction between weakness of will and compulsion and so underwrites our ordinary allocations of moral responsibility. She addresses with clarity and insight a range of important topics in moral psychology, such as the nature of valuing and desiring, conceptions of virtue, moral conflict, and the varieties of recklessness (here characterised as culpable bad judgement) - and does so in terms which make their relations to each other and to the challenges of real life obvious. Agency and Responsibility concludes by testing the accounts developed of self-control, moral failure, and moral responsibility against the hard cases provided by acts of extreme evil.
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First Sentence
Philosophy and common sense have in many areas been at odds with one another. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Philosophy and common sense have in many areas been at odds with one another. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Progressive work.
24 July 2001
Format:Hardcover
This book is extremely well written, with a keen sense of understanding. Well argued, with thorough knowledge of relevant literature. Unlike so much philosophy a good read and easily comprehended. A major advance in the field.
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