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215Hegel, Marx, and dialectic: a debateHumanities Press. 1980.A direct and explicit definition of dialectic is given and by sustained debate the dialectical idea of the fruitfulness of contradiction is exemplified in practice.
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214Equality, envy, and the sense of injusticeJournal of Applied Philosophy 19 (1). 2002.This paper attempts to defend the value of equality against the accusation that it is an expression of irrational and disreputable feelings of envy of those who are better off. It draws on Rawls’ account of the sense of justice to suggest that resentment of inequalities may be a proper resentment of injustice. The case of resentment of ‘free riders’ is taken as one plausible example of a justified resentment of those who benefit unfairly from a scheme of cooperation. Further examples then link t…Read more
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186Can there be a just war?: Norman Can there be a just war?Think 3 (8): 7-16. 2004.Richard Norman examines justifications for war that are rooted in the right of self-defence
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183The moral philosophers: an introduction to ethicsOxford University Press. 1983.The second edition of this accessible book features a new chapter on Nietzsche and an entirely new Part III that covers contemporary utilitarianism, rights-based ethical theories, contractarian ethics and virtue ethics, and recent debates between realism and anti-realism in ethics. The strengths of the first edition--its readability, historical approach, coverage of specific moral philosophers, and detailed recommended reading sections at the beginning of each chapter--combined with the new mate…Read more
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124Applied Ethics: What is Applied to What?Utilitas 12 (2): 119-136. 2000.This paper criticizes the conception of applied ethics as the top-down application of a theory to practical issues. It is argued that a theory such as utilitarianism cannot override our intuitive moral perceptions. We cannot be radically mistaken about the kinds of considerations which count as practical reasons, and it is the task of theoretical ethics to articulate the basic kinds of considerations which we appeal to in practical discussions. Dworkin's model of doing ethics ‘from the inside ou…Read more
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94The Case for PacifismJournal of Applied Philosophy 5 (2): 197-210. 1988.ABSTRACT I present the case for pacifism by formulating what I take to be the most plausible version of the idea of respect for human life. This generates a very strong, though not necessarily absolute, moral presumption against killing, in war or any other situation. I then show how difficult it is for this presumption to be overridden, either by the considerations invoked in ‘just war’theory, or by consequentialist claims about what can be achieved through war. Despite the strength of the mora…Read more
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94Ethics, Killing and WarCambridge University Press. 1995.Can war ever be justified? Why is it wrong to kill? In this new book Richard Norman looks at these and other related questions, and thereby examines the possibility and nature of rational moral argument. Practical examples, such as the Gulf War and the Falklands War, are used to show that, whilst moral philosophy can offer no easy answers, it is a worthwhile enterprise which sheds light on many pressing contemporary problems. A combination of lucid exposition and original argument makes this the…Read more
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85Criteria of justice: Desert, needs and equality (review)Res Publica 7 (2): 115-136. 2001.The conception of social justice as equality is defended in this paper by examining what may appear to be two inegalitarian conceptions of justice, as distribution according to desert and as distribution according to need. It is argued that claims of just entitlement arise within a context of reciprocal co-operation for mutual benefit. Within such a context there are special cases where it can be said that those who contribute more deserve more, and that those who need more should get more, but …Read more
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81The varieties of non-religious experienceRatio 19 (4). 2006.I want to consider the suggestion that certain essential components of human experience are by their nature distinctively religious, and thus that the atheist is either debarred from participating fully in such experiences, or fails to understand their real nature. I am going to look at five kinds of experience: • the experience of the moral 'ought'; • the experience of beauty; • the experience of meaning conferred by stories; • the experience of otherness and transcendence; • the experience of …Read more
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79Good without GodThink 7 (20): 35-46. 2008.In the fifth of our articles on , Richard Norman explains why he believes we can be good without God
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76Making sense of moral realismPhilosophical Investigations 20 (2). 1997.The article begins by surveying defences of moral realism and noting the revival of an ontology of ‘moral properties’. Such a position tends either to invite accusations of espousing metaphysically ‘queer’ properties, or to fall back on a weak (e.g. externalist) version of moral realism. Norman attempts to find a way through these difficulties by exploring the idea of ‘moral vision’, suggesting that this is best understood not as the intuiting of special moral properties but as a matter of ‘seei…Read more
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73Free and equal: a philosophical examination of political valuesOxford University Press. 1987.The concepts of freedom and equality lie at the heart of much contemporary political debate. But how, exactly, are these concepts to be understood? And do they really represent desirable political values? Norman begins from the premise that freedom and equality are rooted in human experience, and thus have a real and objective content. He then argues that the attempt to clarify these concepts is therefore not just a matter of idle philosophical speculation, but also a matter of practical politic…Read more
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57Practical reasons and the redundancy of motivesEthical Theory and Moral Practice 4 (1): 3-22. 2001.Jonathan Dancy, in his 1994 Aristotelian Society Presidential Address, set out to show ''why there is really no such thing as the theory of motivation''. In this paper I want to agree that there is no such thing, and to offer reasons of a different kind for that conclusion. I shall suggest that the so-called theory of motivation misconstrues the question which it purports to answer, and that when we properly analyse the question and distinguish it clearly from other questions with which it shoul…Read more
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53The author defends his version of the parallel which can be drawn between Wittgenstein's 'private language' argument and the argument that practical reasons must necessarily be public reasons. This position is compared and contrasted with recent attempts by Christine Korsgaard and Ken O'Day to formulate a 'public reasons' argument. The position is defended against the criticism that it cannt account for the practical force of reasons. Finally it is argued that, although the claim that the reason…Read more
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49Particularism and reasons: A reply to KirchinJournal of Moral Philosophy 4 (1): 33-39. 2007.Valency switching can appear especially puzzling if we think of moral reasons as pushes and pullsconsiderations whose job it is to get us to act or to stop us acting. Talk of default valency doesn't remove the puzzle, it merely restates it. We need a different picture of reasonsperhaps as providing a map of the moral terrain which helps us to see which actions are appropriate to which situations, and who the appropriate agents are. The role of virtue concepts in particular is more complex …Read more
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38'I did it my way': Some thoughts on autonomyJournal of Philosophy of Education 28 (1). 1994.This paper addresses three questions raised by recent literature on the concept of ‘autonomy’. (I) Should the value of autonomy more properly be seen as a moral constraint or as a goal of action? (2) Is autonomy either possible or desirable, given the ways in which human beings are located within a situation and a community? (3) If autonomy is a desirable goal, is it a universal value or merely one appropriate to modern liberal-democratic societies? Use is made of the distinction between ‘weak’ …Read more
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32Equality, priority and social justiceRatio 12 (2). 1999.The moral principle of giving greater priority to benefiting people, the less well off they are, has been thought by some to share the plausibility of egalitarianism whilst avoiding the less plausible implications of the latter. This paper argues that the 'priority' principle does have an authentic place in our moral thinking, and that it is distinct from the idea of ‘equality’, but that the latter also has an indispensible role to play. The idea of ‘priority’has its place as the expression of t…Read more
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24What do Religious Believers Believe?Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 68 105-124. 2011.A common response to Richard Dawkins' assault on religious belief has been that he is attacking a straw man. The beliefs of religious believers, so the protest goes, are not as crude and simplistic as the ones which he attributes to them. Here is Terry Eagleton's comment to that effect: Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds , and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying ratio…Read more
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18Marxism and Morality By Steven Lukes Oxford: Clarendon Press, 163 pp., £12.50Philosophy 61 (236): 272-. 1986.
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18Reasons for Actions: A Critique of Utilitarian RationalityPhilosophical Quarterly 22 (89): 377. 1972.
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Religion |
Normative Ethics |