Values and Evaluations: Essays on Ethics and Ideology

by Julius Kovesi, Alan Tapper

In the diverse but related essays collected in Values and Evaluations, Julius Kovesi's central concerns are the nature of ideological thinking and the rational core of morality. "It is characteristic of ideological beliefs that their truth is upheld independent of the arguments for them," he contends. He examines ideological tendencies in the Marxist tradition, in attempts to demythologize Christianity, and in modern British ethical theory. In ethics, he continues the attack on the fact/value dichotomy he began in Moral Notions, a dichotomy he thinks has ideological sources. In theology, he argues that demythologizing is really a form of "remythologizing." A long study of Moses Hess's essay On the Essence of Money is used to illuminate the early thought of Marx.

223 pages, Hardcover

First published October 8, 2001

About the author

Julius Kovesi was a Hungarian-born Australian philosopher. He taught at the University of Western Australia. His best-known work is Moral Notions (1967).