Strong Evaluation without Moral Sources

On Charles Taylor's Philosophical Anthropology and Ethics

Arto Laitinen

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9783110204049
• eBook ISBN: 9783110211900
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Charles Taylor (1931- ) is one of the leading living philosophers. This is the first extended study on the key notions of his views in philosophical anthropology and ethical theory. Firstly, Laitinen clarifies, qualifies and defends Taylor's thesis that transcendental arguments show that personal understandings concerning ethical and other values (so called "strong evaluation") is necessary, in different ways, for human agency, selfhood, identity and personhood. Secondly, Laitinen defends and develops in various ways Taylor's value realism. Finally, the book criticizes Taylor's view that it is necessary to identify and locate a constitutive source of value, such as God, Nature or Human Reason. Taylor relies heavily on this claim in his accounts of moral life, modern identity and, most recently, secularisation. Laitinen argues that the whole notion of constitutive moral source should be dropped – Taylor's views concerning strong evaluation and value realism are distorted by the question of constitutive "moral sources".

Table of contents

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. What is strong evaluation? A reading and reconstruction of Taylor’s central concept
• 2. Human agents as strong evaluators
• 3. Personhood as strongly valued: a strong evaluator as an end in itself
• 4. Does identity consist of strong evaluations?
• 5. The engaged view and the reality of value
• 6. Diversity and universality
• 7. Does moral reality need sources?
• 8. Evaluative beliefs and knowledge
• 9. Moral realism and personal variations
• 10. Conclusion
• Backmatter