Fundamentals of Ethics

by John Finnis

Are we entitled to be confident that our moral judgements can be objective? Can they express insights into aspects of reality, rather than mere feelings, tastes, desires, decisions, upbringing, or conventions? Why must we consider some of our choices to be free, and how do our free choices matter? How far should our moral judgements be based on assessments of expected consequences? Can utilitarianism, and other consequentialist or proportionalist theories, be anything more than the rationalization of positions taken on other grounds?

The main theme of this book is the challenge to ethics from philosophical scepticism and from contemporary forms of consequentialism. But in seeking to meet this challenge, the book develops a sustained philosophical argument about many of the central questions of ethics. It reviews classical positions, and challenges some long-influential interpretations of those positions. It also reviews and participates in some recent developments and controversies in Anglo-American ethical theory.

The activity of ethical theorizing itself is shown to be a matter of free and intelligent decision, in pursuit of intelligible good; it thus provides a test-case for any ethical theory.

Genres: Philosophy, Law

173 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1983

About the author

John Mitchell Finnis (born 28 July 1940) is an Australian legal philosopher, jurist and scholar specializing in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. He is currently the Biolchini Family Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School and Permanent Senior Distinguished Research Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture. He was Professor of Law & Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 2010, where he is now professor emeritus. He acted as a constitutional adviser to successive Australian Commonwealth governments in constitutional matters and bilateral relations with the United Kingdom.

Reviews

[Bob Breckwoldt · Rating 2 out of 5]

A vigrorous defence of an Aristotelian-Thomistic conception of ethics, conceived as the the flourishing of human existence through the pursuit of life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, friendship, practical reasonableness and religion - the human goods. Where "religion" is understood as spirituality or ideals there is much to commend it over other conceptions of morality, but his insitence on welding it to conservative Catholicism reduces the effectiveness of his arguments. That and the difficulty, in fact impenetrability, of his writing mean I docked it one star.

[Aaron Cliff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strap me into the experience machine Mr. Whitaker, I'm gonna meet Jesus.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Stop using brackets in each and every sentence.

Learn to use the proximal pronoun/determiner, THIS, instead of using THAT trillion times.

Conclusion: Stop writing, old twat.

[John Ril Gobuyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

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