Conceptual Structures of Moral Experience

This book argues that the substance of many of the§theoretical issues and debates of contemporary§Western ethics have questionable relevance toward §answering Socrates question, How shall we§live? or as this book engages the question, By what§values shall we live? ,for the complex dynamism of §the modern world. This problem arises as a§consequence of an overly abstract disengagement from§empirical considerations that is argued to be the§result of a Western conception of moral rationality§in which moral justification must meet the conditions§of objectivity and universalizability. The specific§empirical considerations that are mostly absent in§Western moral inquiry are non-Western conceptions of§morality and contemporary research in the Cognitive§Sciences and particularly empirical moral psychology.§When many of the traditional abstract debates of§contemporary Western ethics are analyzed in the light§of the foregoing empirical considerations, the§introduction of those empirical considerations has a§powerful effect on the shape and substantive claims§at issue in those debates.