Ethical norms, particular cases /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Wallace, James D., 1937-
Imprint:	Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1996.
Description:	1 online resource (xi, 171 pages)
Language:	English
Subject:	Ethics. Practice (Philosophy) Authority. Authority. Ethics. Practice (Philosophy)
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11678143

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9781501717352 1501717359 0801432138 9780801432132
Digital file characteristics:	data file
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 165-168) and index. Print version record.
Summary:	James D. Wallace treats moral considerations as beliefs about the right and wrong ways of doing things - beliefs whose source and authority are the same as any other kind of practical knowledge. Principles, rules, and norms arise from people's cumulative experience in pursuing their purposes and struggling with the problems they encounter. Moral knowledge, he contends, is excerpted from the bodies of information we have developed so that we will be able to raise our children, govern our communities, build our buildings, heal our ailments, and pursue the many other activities that constitute our lives. According to Wallace, understanding moral norms is a matter of understanding how they, together with the other pertinent items of practical knowledge, guide our complex activities. The more we abstract a moral principle from the concrete contexts in which it operates, Wallace argues, the less intelligible the principle becomes. Wallace's suggestion that difficult moral problems are properly resolved by attending to their context rejects Plato's thesis that immutable, timeless, universal values exist. He illustrates the process of extracting resolutions for moral dilemmas from the practical knowledge involved in concrete problems of law, medicine, and scientific research. Unprecedented problems sometimes evoke disagreement and uncertainty, prompting Wallace to consider controversies in areas as diverse as chess, commerce, and slavery. The final issue Wallace explores is the abortion problem, reasoned from the particularist perspective he advocates.
Other form:	Print version: Wallace, James D., 1937- Ethical norms, particular cases. Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1996 0801432138

Review by Choice Review

Wallace (Univ. of Illinois, Chicago-Urbana), author of Moral Relevance and Moral Conflict (CH, May'89) and Virtues and Vices (CH, Feb'79), presents a view of morality as a kind of practical knowledge. He holds that morality is derived from people's life experience rather than from some scientific, supernatural, or Platonic source. Ethical norms, in this view, are human instruments. His view is a thoroughly naturalistic one and contrasts with accounts that fail to recognize morality as a human creation. Wallace claims that moral knowledge is empirical; it is based on experience and can be supported by reason and argument. He stresses the importance of examining moral problems in their context (rather than considering abstract principles). People devise solutions to problems, solutions that take a variety of values into account; they do not discover some preexisting solution or some one overriding supervalue. The book makes reference to classical philosophers such as Dewey and Aristotle and contemporary thinkers such as Dworkin and MacIntyre, but the book is not historical; rather, it is a genuine effort to come to grips with the nature of morality. Undergraduate; graduate; faculty; general. S. Satris Clemson University

Review by Choice Review

Ethical norms, particular cases /

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