Ruling Passions A Theory of Practical Reasoning [Hardcover]

Why do we behave as we do? Can we improve? Is our ethics at war with our passions, or is it an upshot of those passions? Distinguished philosopher Simon Blackburn seeks the answers to such questions in this brilliant exploration of the nature of moral emotions and the structures of human motivation.Ruling Passionsreveals how ethics can maintain its authority even though it is rooted in the very emotions and motivations that it exists to control.

Introduction
1. Organizing Practice: The Elements of Ethics
2. Things That Concern Us
3. The Ethical Proposition: What It Is Not
4. Naturalizing Norms
5. Looking Out For Yourself
6. Game Theory and Rational Actors
7. The Good, the Right, and the Common Point of View
8. Self-Control, Reason, and Freedom
9. Relativism, Subjectivism, Knowledge
Appendix
Bibliography
Index

Simon Blackburnis the Edna J. Koury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He also holds an adjunct Chair at the Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences. From 1969 to 1990 he was Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford, and from 1984 to 1990 he edited the journalMind. He is the author of theOxford Dictionary of Philosophy.