Moral Perception and Particularity [Hardcover]

This collection of Laurence Blum's essays examines the moral import of emotion, motivation, judgement, perception, and group identifications.Concerned with the psychology of moral agency, the essays in this collection examine the moral importance of emotion, motivation, judgment, perception and group identifications, and explore how these psychic capacities contribute to a morally good life.Concerned with the psychology of moral agency, the essays in this collection examine the moral importance of emotion, motivation, judgment, perception and group identifications, and explore how these psychic capacities contribute to a morally good life.Most contemporary moral philosophy is concerned with issues of rationality, universality, impartiality, and principle. By contrast Lawrence Blum is concerned with the psychology of moral agency. The essays in this collection examine the moral import of emotion, motivation, judgment, perception, and group identifications, and explore how all these psychic capacities contribute to a morally good life.Part I. Particularity: 1. Introduction; 2. Iris Murdoch and the domain of the moral; 3. Moral perception and particularity; Part II. Moral Excellence: 4. Moral exemplars: reflections on Scindler, the Trocmes, and others; 5. Vocation, friendship, community: limitations of the personal/impersonal framework; 6. Altruism and the moral value of rescue: Resisting persecution, racism, and genocide; 7. Virtue and community; Part III. The Morality of Care: 8. Compassion; 9. Moral development and conceptions of morality; 10. Gilligan and Kohlberg: implications for moral theory; 11. Gilligan's two voices and the moral status of group identity. His [Blum's] examples are illuminating, and he gives a useful step-by-step summary of how a person moves from moral perception to action based on principle. Ethics This is a complex book, and it raises important challenges to traditional moral theories. . . . all moral theorists, regardless of their preferls*