First Things: An Inquiry Into the First Principles of Morals and Justice

Capa
Princeton University Press, 21/08/1986 - 432 páginas

This book restores to us an understanding that was once settled in the "moral sciences": that there are propositions, in morals and law, which are not only true but which cannot be otherwise. It was understood in the past that, in morals or in mathematics, our knowledge begins with certain axioms that must hold true of necessity; that the principles drawn from these axioms hold true universally, unaffected by variations in local "cultures"; and that the presence of these axioms makes it possible to have, in the domain of morals, some right answers. Hadley Arkes restates the grounds of that older understanding and unfolds its implications for the most vexing political problems of our day.

The author turns first to the classic debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. After establishing the groundwork and properties of moral propositions, he traces their application in such issues as selective conscientious objection, justifications for war, the war in Vietnam, a nation's obligation to intervene abroad, the notion of supererogatory acts, the claims of "privacy," and the problem of abortion.

 

Índice

Introduction
3
The Groundwork of Moral Judgment
9
On the Capacity for Morals and the Origins of Law
11
The One and Only Legitimate Constitution Government by Law and Government by Consent
31
On Necessary Truths and the Existence of Morals
51
Moral Principles Valid and Spurious
85
On Vulgar Systems of Morality The Myth of Facts and Values
116
The Fallacies of Cultural Relativism or Abbott and Costello Meet the Anthropologist
134
Can There Be an Obligation to Risk Ones Life for Ones Country? The Attractions and Dangers of Hobbess Teaching
206
On the Justifications of War and the Two Vietnams
232
The Morality of Intervention
261
The Obligation to Rescue and Supererogatory Acts
288
The Moral Case for Welfare the Troubled Case for Redistribution
309
Privacy and the Reach of the Law
327
The Question of Abortion and the Discipline of Moral Reasoning
360
Abortion and the Framing of the Laws
392

First Principles A Provisional Summary
159
Cases and Applications
175
On the Grounds for Exemption from the Law Is Conscientious Objection Moral?
177
Conclusion
423
Index
427
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