Real American Ethics potx

[...]... Ethics has to become real as well as theoretical and practical It has to become a making as well as a doing Real means tangible; real ethics is taking responsibility for the tangible setting of life Real also means relevant, and real ethics is grounding theoretical and practical ethics in contemporary culture and making them thrive again American Ethics All right then, we need real ethics But why American. .. the first to live in a genetically modified world American culture is spreading around the globe But is American ethics traveling with it? Ethics is sometimes used descriptively In that sense, it describes the typical conduct of a person or a people So understood, a certain amount of American ethics goes along with 11 12 chapter one American culture But ethics can also be taken normatively, as a statement... varied canvas But it is finally more than a picture and a portrait It is a story that, although unfinished, has a moral introduction The Place of Ethics chapter one Real American Ethics The Scope and Coherence of American Ethics How can anyone hope to set down ethics for so large and populous a country as the United States? Well, you have to remember that the great philosophers of the modern era meant... virtue of the designers is congenial to Churchill’s principle Ethics is being equal to the claims of persons and things, particularly to the claims that make us lesser people if we ignore them The moral landmarks that the modern theories of ethics have discovered and the traditional virtues that set norms for practices of excellence real american ethics work well in telling us how to treat one another and... Public support of the poor in this country and around the world is the most miserly among the industrialized countries Our stewardship of the environment is indifferent The public realm of this country is busy real american ethics and messy, and most of the public places of recreation and celebration we owe to our great-great-grandparents Some of these failings are of a private and personal kind, problems... exploitation are economically necessary and environmentally tolerable When it comes to the individual pursuit of excellence, uniform mediocrity rather than unruly diversity is the problem Knowing real american ethics what the norms of personal excellence are is not the problem There are three reasonable ways that converge on the same three virtues To recognize the first approach, we have to overcome the... the janitor had his money She could climb into a private jet as easily as she now climbs onto the bus She could enjoy the five courses at Le Cirque as well as she eats the hamburger she gets at real american ethics McDonald’s It is no longer the case that to belong to the upper class a young woman has to be able to play the harpsichord, do needlework, and remember the steps and bows of the minuet; nor... on the destruction of Native American culture and the subordination of African Americans and women But in the end, it made for the inclusion of all and over the expanse of a continent The great virtue of a nation is that the people comprising it take responsibility for one another and for what they have in common When people in Mississippi made it impossible for African Americans to vote, we did not... Ethics All right then, we need real ethics But why American ethics? Haven’t we had enough grief from the global community for being selfabsorbed and overbearing? There are two good reasons why limiting ourselves to the United States is reasonable First, for an ethics to be relevant to people, it has to address their particular circumstances Global ethics would have to be thin, or it would be endless if... the pursuit of excellence is elitist, or oppressive, or a wild goose chase The Reality of Moral Standards The landmarks of decency and the virtues of excellence that are the remedies for the sores on the body politic and the private person are not really in question The landmarks have been articulated by modern theories of ethics, and they prominently include equality, dignity, and self-determination . moral. x preface introduction The Place of Ethics chapter one Real American Ethics The Scope and Coherence of American Ethics How can anyone hope to set down ethics for so large and populous a country. nancy preface ix Contents Introduction: The Place of Ethics 1 Real American Ethics 3 2 Decency and Passion 13 3 Kinds of Ethics 25 Part One: Theoretical Ethics 4 Moral Landmarks 33 5 Jefferson and Kant. 69 8 John Rawls 79 Part Two: Practical Ethics 9 Theory and Practice 87 10 Personal Virtues 99 11 Political Virtues 125 Part Three: Real Ethics 12 Recognizing Reality 141 13 The Economy of the Household