| Description |
1 online resource (255 pages) |
| Contents |
Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1 Myths, Fantasies, and Realism: The Story of Sethe; Similarities and Differences; A Social ""Unconscious; Myths, Fantasies, and Morrison's Beloved; Myth and Realism; Problems; Politics of Identity: The Epistemic Status of Identity; Problems of Identity: Identity Is Epistemically Constrained; Real Similarities and Differences; 2 Transformation Experiences and Rational Deliberation; Doing the Right Thing: The Standard View; The Problem of Personal Integrity; Conversion Experiences |
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Nonpropositional or Implicit UnderstandingRationality Again; 3 Objective Interests, Nonpropositional Knowledge, and Conversion Experiences; Railton's Objective Ends; Problems; Objective Interests Defined in Terms of Specified Ends; Objective Interests Defined by Paths of Development; Getting It Backward; 4 Leading Life from the Inside: Individuals, Minority Rights, and Some Problems About Indeterminacy; Individual Interests; Cultures as Contexts of Choice; An Epistemological Problem; Cultural Politics; Justification and Problems About Indeterminacy; Conclusion |
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5 Personal Integrity, Politics, and Moral ImaginationIndividual Identity: Rorty and Wong; Integrity: McFall and Davion; Individuality and Moral Imagination; Bitterness; Elster and the Rationality of Vindictiveness; Conclusion; 6 Feminists and Nature: A Defense of Essentialism; Essentialism; Haraway's Radical Nominalism; Realism; Essentialism/Nominalism; 7 Reason and the Erotic: The Moral Significance of Personal Relations and Commitments; Miller's Account of Partiality; Problems; Particularism in Feminist Discussions; Ways of Being; Radical Critique and Moral Imagination; The Erotic Again |
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Conclusion8 Philosophy and Literature: Recalling the Archangel; Aristotle and Rationality; Literature and Moral Imagination; The Archangel and the Prole; Rationality and Moral Imagination; The Return of the Archangel?; Rationality Once Again; Epilogue; Notes; Bibliography; About the Book and Author; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; U; V; W |
| Summary |
Both contemporary philosophy and commonsense morality presuppose a personal autonomy and integrity that an unjust social system may make impossible for some people. Babbitt examines the implications of this insight, drawing on feminist and antiracist political theory, contemporary analytic ethics and philosophy of mind, and nonphilosophical literature. She argues for the role of moral imagination in discovering and defending a more humane social vision. }Conventional wisdom and commonsense morality tend to take the integrity of persons for granted. But for people in systematically unjust societies, self-respect and human dignity may prove to be impossible dreams. Susan Babbitt explores the implications of this insight, arguing that in the face of systemic injustice, individual and social rationality may require the transformation rather than the realization of deep-seated aims, interests, and values. In particular, under such conditions, she argues, the cultivation and ongoing exercise of moral imagination is necessary to discover and defend a more humane social vision. Impossible Dreams is one of those rare books that fruitfully combines discourses that were previously largely separate: feminist and antiracist political theory, analytic ethics and philosophy of mind, and a wide range of non-philosophical literature on the lives of oppressed peoples around the world. It is both an object lesson in reaching across academic barriers and a demonstration of how the best of feminist philosophy can be in conversation with the best of mainstream philosophyas well as affect the lives of real people. } |
| Notes |
Print version record |
| Subject |
Ethics.
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Integrity.
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Imagination (Philosophy)
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Reason.
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Ethics
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ethics (philosophy)
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reason.
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PHILOSOPHY -- Ethics & Moral Philosophy.
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PHILOSOPHY -- Social.
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Ethics
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Imagination (Philosophy)
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Integrity
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Reason
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780429968464 |
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0429968469 |
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9780429979545 |
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0429979541 |
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