Moral Strategy An Introduction to the Ethics of Confrontation

No statement, except one, can be made with which all philosophers would agree. The exception is this statement itself. The disagreement has the advantage that it gets all the proposals out into the open where they can be examined, but it has the dis advantage that the cogency of any one philosophy must rely entirely upon that wide public which is unprepared to deal with it. Fortunately, ethics has a more immediate appeal than some other branches of philosophy; yet the history of the topic gives no indication that this circumstance has had the happy results we might have expected. One peculiarity of ethics is that its problems are rarely settled on its own grounds. Ethical problems are for the most part referred to socially established moralities, and moralities are socially established not on the basis of philosophy but rather by some sponsoring insti­ or politics. Such establishments, however, tution, usually religion depend on the prior preparation of ethical proposals by philosophers. For it stands to reason that an ethics cannot be socially established if there is no ethics to establish. Thus philosophers provide the justifi­ cation for socially-established moralities while seeming not to do so.

Book One — Introduction.- I — The Approach to Ethics and Morality.- 1. Methodological Considerations.- a. The Task of Ethics.- b. Methods in Ethics.- c. The Position of Ethics.- 2. Moral Integrative Levels.- 3. A Summary Perspective.- Book Two — The Ethical Integrative Series.- II — The Ethics of the Individual.- 1. The Individual Good.- a. The Good as What is Needed.- b. The Level of the Individual.- c. Excessive Behavior.- d. The Social Nature of the Individual.- e. The Conscience.- 2. Approaches to the Good.- a. The Needs as Motives.- b. Type Responsibility.- c. Confrontation Theory.- d. The Egoistic Perspective.- e. Moral Equipment.- f. Good Reasons.- g. Dispositions Toward the Good.- 3. The Pursuit of the Good.- a. Action and Conduct.- b. The Pursuit of Individual Goods.- c. Bad Behavior.- d. The Incompleteness of Individual Goods.- III — The Ethics of Society.- 1. Morality as Social Structure.- a. Width and Constituents.- b. Needs and Norms.- 2. The Covert Moral Structure.- a. The Implicit Dominant Ontology.- b. Inter-Personal Beliefs.- 3. The Overt Moral Structure.- a. The State.- b. The Institutions.- 4. Rights and Duties.- a. Intrinsic Rights and Wrongs.- b. Extrinsic Rights and Wrongs.- c. Duties.- 5. The Law and Legal Procedures.- a. Levels of Application.- b. The Law as Enacted Morality.- c. Material Goods.- d. Justice.- e. The Incompleteness of Social Goods.- IV — The Ethics of the Human Species.- 1. From Society to Humanity.- a. The Domain of Humanity.- b. Cultural Limits to Ethical Speculation.- c. For and Against Cultural Relativism.- d. Isolated Moral Communities.- 2. Characteristics of the Human Species.- a. Species Type Responsibility and Confrontation.- b. Demotic and Heroic Man.- 3. The Morality of the Human Species.- a. Two Limited Species Principles.- b. Beyond the Two Principles.- 4. Moral Encounters with Near-by Species.- a. To Eat or be Eaten.- b. The Incompleteness of Human Goods.- V — The Ethics of the Cosmos.- 1. The Cosmic Perspective.- a. Man Confronted by the World.- b. Cosmic Ethics.- 2. The Cosmic Good.- a. Matter as Good.- b. Good and Beautiful Quality.- c. Particular Goods.- 3. Truth and Value.- a. Truth a Function of Space.- b. Value a Function of Time.- c. Evil and Uglines.- 4. Cosmic Type Responsibility.- 5. Cosmic Confrontation.- 6. Normative Cosmic Ethics.- a. The Cosmic “Ought”.- b. Objective Chance and the Normative.- c. Cosmic Justice.- 7. The Ethics of Man in Relation to the Cosmos.- a. Relations Mediated by the Ethical Integrative Series.- b. Immediate Relations.- Book Three — The Moral Situation and Its Outcome.- VI — Ideal Morality.- 1. The Choice of Ideals.- a. Rival Claimants for the Ideal.- b. The Four Grades of Obligation.- 2. Individual Ideals.- a. The Obligation to Widen Life.- b. Demotic and Heroic Morality.- c. What Should We Think, Feel, and Do?.- 3. Social Ideals.- a. Differences and The Ideal.- b. Similarities: The Ideal Morality.- 4. Human Ideals.- a. The Evolution of Ethical Superman.- b. Trans-Cultural Ethical Principles.- c. The Ideal Material Culture of Humanity.- 5. Cosmic Ideals.- a. Intrinsic Cosmic Goodness.- b. Cosmic Ethical Principles.- VII — Concrete Morality.- 1. Bad Behavior and Immorality.- a. Corruption of the Four Grades of Obligation.- b. The Significance of Bad Behavior.- 2. Bad Individual Behavior.- a. Actively Bad Individual Behavior.- b. Passively Bad Individual Behavior.- c. The Unsocial Individual.- d. The Ambivalence of Aggression.- 3. Bad Social Behavior.- a. The Social Disapproval of Good Behavior.- b. The Social Approval of Bad Behavior.- c. The Bad Behavior of Institutions.- d. The Bad Behavior of Societies.- 4. Bad Species Behavior.- 5. Bad Cosmic Behavior.- VIII — Moral Strategy.- 1. The Uses of Strategy.- a. The Ideal, the Actual and the Strategic.- b. The Four Grades of Obligation.- 2. The Strategy of Individual Obligation.- a. Individual Moral Methodology.- b. Practical Moral Conduct.- c. The Formula for Happiness.- d. The Rational and the Good.- 3. The Strategy of Social Obligation.- a. Social Strategy Toward the Individual.- b. Demotic and Heroic Strategy.- c. Institutional Strategy.- 4. The Strategy of Human Obligation.- 5. The Strategy of Cosmic Obligation.- a. The Paradoxes of Ultimate Explanation.- b. Toward the Unlimited Community.- c. Standpointlessness.- d. Dual Attachment.- Name Index.- Topic Index.