The Importance of What We Care About Philosophical Essays [Paperback]

A collection of thirteen seminal essays on ethics, free will, and the philosophy of mind, first published in 1988.Thirteen essays on ethics, free will, and the philosophy of mind define the distinctive nature of human freedom by exploring such fundamental problems as what being a person entails and what one should care about.Thirteen essays on ethics, free will, and the philosophy of mind define the distinctive nature of human freedom by exploring such fundamental problems as what being a person entails and what one should care about.This volume is a collection of thirteen seminal essays on ethics, free will, and the philosophy of mind. The essays deal with such central topics as freedom of the will, moral responsibility, the concept of a person, the structure of the will, the nature of action, the constitution of the self, and the theory of personal ideals. By focusing on the distinctive nature of human freedom, Professor Frankfurt is ale to explore fundamental problems of what it is to be a person and of what one should care about in life.Preface; Sources; 1. Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility; 2. Freedom of the will and the concept of a person; 3. Coercion and moral responsibility; 4. Three concepts of free action; 5. Identification and externality; 6. The problem of action; 7. The importance of what we care about; 8. What we are mortally responsible for; 9. Necessity and desire; 10. On bullshit; 11. Equality as a moral ideal; 12. Identification and wholeheartedness; 13. Rationality and the unthinkable. Harry Frankfurt is one of the great philosophers of our time. For those who lament that contemporary academic philosophy has become too technical and detached from basic questions of human meaning and value, this small, readable book is a breath of fresh air. Robert George, Princeton University, Princeton Alumni Weekly