Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality - Couverture rigide

Hunter, James Davison; Nedelisky, Paul

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0300196288 ISBN 13 : 9780300196283

Editeur : Yale University Press, 2019

Synopsis

Why efforts to create a scientific basis of morality are neither scientific nor moral

In this illuminating book, James Davison Hunter and Paul Nedelisky trace the origins and development of the centuries-long, passionate, but ultimately failed quest to discover a scientific foundation for morality. The "new moral science" led by such figures as E. O. Wilson, Patricia Churchland, Sam Harris, Jonathan Haidt, and Joshua Greene is only the newest manifestation of that quest. Though claims for its accomplishments are often wildly exaggerated, this new iteration has been no more successful than its predecessors. But rather than giving up in the face of this failure, the new moral science has taken a surprising turn. Whereas earlier efforts sought to demonstrate what is right and wrong, the new moral scientists have concluded, ironically, that right and wrong don't actually exist. Their (perhaps unwitting) moral nihilism turns the science of morality into a social engineering project. If there is nothing moral for science to discover, the science of morality becomes, at best, a feeble program to achieve arbitrary societal goals. Concise and rigorously argued, Science and the Good is a definitive critique of a would-be science that has gained extraordinary influence in public discourse today and an exposé of that project's darker turn.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia. Paul Nedelisky is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Yale University Press
• Date d'édition: 2019
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0300196288
• ISBN 13: 9780300196283
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 312
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible