Academic literature on the topic 'Practical ethics'

This dissertation concerns two aspects of Plutarch’s ethics that have received relatively little attention: the link between his metaphysics and ethics, and Plutarch’s use of diatribe, a rhetorical style primarily associated with Stoics and Cynics, as a means of targeting a wider audience of educated elite for his philosophy. I argue that Plutarch’s De virtute morali links his ethics with his understanding of Platonic metaphysics. De virtute morali also serves as model for Plutarch’s ethical treatises on specific topics. I analyze the following works: De curiositate, De garrulitate, De vitando aere alieno, De vitioso pudore, and De superstitione. In these, Plutarch identifies a vicious behavior (κρίσις) and suggests methods of self-training to eliminate the vicious behavior (ἄσκησις). Self-training always involves the subordination of emotions to reason (μετριοπάθεια), rather than the elimination of emotions (άπάθεια) advocated by the Stoics. Plutarch uses diatribe, in which the author adopts a conversational tone and addresses the reader in second person, both in κρίσις and ἄσκησις, as well as in his arguments against Stoic άπάθεια. Since Stoicism was the most popular philosophical adherence among educated elites during the time when Plutarch began to write, I argue that Plutarch adopts rhetoric associated with the Stoics as a means of promoting Platonism, and himself as its interpreter, in a culture where intellectuals required the patronage of the educated elite for their personal livelihood and the livelihood of their schools.

This thesis is an examination of the foundations of practical reason. Building on the later work of Wittgenstein, I argue for a subjectivist view of moral judgment and of judgments about reasons for action. On this view, moral judgments and judgments about reasons for action can be true or false, but they are not objective. The argument for this view has the form of an inference to the best explanation. Using a distinction between primary and secondary qualities, I suggest that moral judgments and judgments about reasons for action should not be construed as referring to an ethical or normative reality that exists independently of us. There are ethical facts and facts about our reasons, but these facts arise as the result of our involvement in a linguistic practice. This provides a new way of accounting for these judgments that differs both from moral realism and expressivism. The view of reasons that emerges is closely related to, but not identical with, reasons internalism as described by Bernard Williams. I reject his argument in favour of internalism and provide a new and independent argument to support this view of our reasons. In the course of spelling out that argument, I show why internalism as described by Williams should be modified, and why this does not commit us to externalism. In the final chapters, I show that there is an important parallel between our practical predicament and the account of our epistemic condition as portrayed by Wittgenstein. The inference to the best explanation is completed by considering a number of objections to subjectivism that are based on the idea that a subjectivist account of moral judgment and of reasons fails to do justice to the ethical phenomena. I reject these objections, and suggest that a subjectivist can both be reflectively aware of his subjectivism and continue to live well.

This play demonstrates an interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy in practice. The main character experiences loss and confusion, however, through this struggle arrives at a discovery of profound truth. If you've ever wondered how to live your life in the best way possible, the main character believes he's found the answer.

COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR<br>O presente trabalho se insere na discussão sobre a identificação de fronteiras para o fazer tradutório. Levando-se em conta as teorias pós-modernas sobre a linguagem, busca-se compreender se, mesmo diante de novas concepções de língua, cultura, sujeito e tradução, é possível reivindicar características razoavelmente estáveis para a prática tradutória. Algumas práticas de reescrita que são apresentadas como tradução, mas que, supostamente, subvertem em excesso os textos que lhes precedem representam um desafio ao estabelecimento dessas fronteiras. Neste trabalho, analisam-se três diferentes projetos de tradução que abertamente declaram a defesa de uma agenda política específica, para verificar até que ponto eles se afastam da acepção de tradução como uma representação o mais próxima possível, na língua-alvo, de um texto estrangeiro. Os projetos estudados são: as traduções feministas, as traduções pós- colonialistas e o projeto de tradução minorizante de Lawrence Venuti. Esta análise se presta a verificar as motivações ético-políticas dos projetos em questão e as principais estratégias por eles utilizadas. A busca de um campo conceitual e prático próprio para a tradução está articulada a uma preocupação ética na qual o leitor é o norte das discussões.<br>This paper was developed in the context of the discussion about the identification of boundaries in translation practice. Taking into account the postmodern theories of language, I try to understand whether it is possible to define, even in face of new conceptions of language, culture, subject and translation, reasonably stable characteristics of the translation practice. Some rewriting practices presented as traslations, but which, in my opinion, subvert excessively the original text pose a challenge for the definition of such boundaries. In this thesis, I analize three different translation projects which openly uphold a particular political agenda, in order to verify to which extent they are distanced from the definition of translation as the closest possible representation of a foreign text in a target language. The projects studied here are: feminist translations, postcolonial translations and Lawrence Venuti´s minoritizing project. This analysis aims at understanding the ethical and political motivations of the projects at issue and their main strategies. The pursuit of a specific conceptual and practical field for translation is linked to an ethical concern at which the reader is the focus of the discussion.

What should I do? As long as I am aware of the relevant facts of the situation and deliberating soundly, Bernard Williams argues that I should do what I want to do. It makes no sense to say that there are reasons that are fixed objects of concern, or values, that exist for an agent regardless of what she is in fact motivated to do. Reasons, for Williams, are hypothetical. I argue that he takes this view of practical reason because of a prior answer to the question “How should I live?”. A universal account of the good life would mean an account of values, or interests, that all human beings should have. Williams thinks it is not possible to give a universal account of the good life for human beings; any such account must be constructed out of the particular reasons of a community. But, he takes a constructivist view of the good life because he thinks that to be universal an account of the good life would have to be objective. Since objectivity cannot be achieved, he argues, neither can universality. Williams is only half right. That objectivity is not possible is inconsequential. A foundation for ethics has to be internal, but this does not preclude it being universal. I develop such a foundation based on the Aristotelian conception of human nature. A life cannot be wholly good if it is not self-respecting. Moreover, self-respect fits the framework for the specification of the good life that this foundation provides: I argue that self-respect can be shown to have a structure which provides an account of real interests - reasons that are objects of fixed concern. As such, reasons recognise rather than construct the good, making categorical reasons possible. A person can have a reason to change or act, even if reason itself cannot effect that change or action. Thus, I can be wrong about what I should do not only by being wrong about what would count as a satisfaction of my interests, but also by being wrong about what my interests are.