Reflections On How We Live

by Annette Baier

The pioneering moral philosopher Annette Baier presents a series of new and recent essays in ethics, broadly conceived to include both engagements with other philosophers and personal meditations on life. Baier's unique voice and insight illuminate a wide range of topics. In the public sphere, she enquires into patriotism, what we owe future people, and what toleration we should have for killing. In the private sphere, she discusses honesty, self-knowledge, hope, sympathy, and self-trust, and offers personal reflections on faces, friendship, and alienating affection.

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 22, 2009

About the author

Annette Claire Baier (née Stoop; 1929 - Nov. 2, 2012), a well-known moral philosopher and Hume scholar, focused in particular on Hume's moral psychology. She is well known also for her contributions to feminist philosophy and to the philosophy of mind, where she was strongly influenced by her former colleague, Wilfrid Sellars. Her husband was the philosopher Kurt Baier. For most of her career she taught in the philosophy department at the University of Pittsburgh, having moved there from Carnegie Mellon University. She retired to her native Dunedin, New Zealand, where she graduated from the University of Otago.

She is a former President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, an office reserved for the elite of her profession. Baier received an honorary Doctor of Literature from the University of Otago in 1999.