Reframing Ethics Through Dialectics: A New Understanding of the Moral Good

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A provocative approach to the possibility of philosophical ethics, this study argues that all moral positions and theories are bound to fail. Using the dialectical tensions inherent to competing moral claims as his starting point, Michael Steinmann explains what he terms the failure of morality both in classical and contemporary positions. As moral claims lead in various ways to contradictions, the history of morality presents itself as an endless series of controversies. By using dialectical thinking, which has gone out of favour in current philosophy, Steinmann shows how we can capture the limitations of moral theories in a more holistic way. Without embracing skepticism about moral claims, a non-naturalistic and non-relativistic understanding of the good emerges as the fundamental notion of moral thought. Reframing Ethics Through Dialectics reinvigorates the classical notion of the absolute good as a fruitful conceptual structure through which to understand competing moral claims, without simply reproducing neo-Aristotelian literature on the good life. From the perspective of the good, the study allows us to take non-traditional theories more seriously, making space for moral philosophy to acknowledge and embrace the contradictions that all positions incur.

Reviews

Reframing Ethics Through Dialectics is an ambitious and challenging book that addresses themes of fundamental importance to ethics. It argues that, while we ineluctably pursue the good, we must also ineluctably fail to achieve it. * James Kirwan, Professor of Cross-Cultural Studies, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan *
Michael Steinmanns Reframing Ethics Through Dialectics represents a daring intervention in contemporary moral philosophy. Through his powerful argument that all moral theories are destined to fail because of the dialectics they inevitably fall into, Steinmann calls for a new, original approach to the practice of moral philosophy itself. * Theodore George, Professor of Philosophy and Presidential Impact Fellow, Texas A&M University, USA *
In Reframing Ethics through Dialectics: A New Conception of the Moral Good, Michael Steinmann offers a novel and well-argued defense of the relevance of the absolute good to contemporary debates in ethics. Steinmann reframes a quite old conception in a novel and interesting way. The idea of the good becomes the basis, as it was for Plato and for Hegel, for resolving the fundamental tensions and seeming contradictions between alternative conceptions of morals. * Pierre Keller, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, US *

Author Bio

Michael Steinmann is Professor of Philosophy at Stevens Institute of Technology, USA.