The Autonomy of Morality

Description

In The Autonomy of Morality Charles Larmore challenges two ideas that have shaped the modern mind. The world, he argues, is not a realm of value-neutral fact, nor does human freedom consist in imposing principles of our own devising on an alien reality. Rather, reason consists in being responsive to reasons for thought and action that arise from the world itself. Larmore shows that the moral good has an authority that speaks for itself. Only in this light does the true basis of a liberal political order come into view, as well as the role of unexpected goods in the makeup of a life lived well.

Charles Larmore is W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. The author of The Morals of Modernity and The Romantic Legacy, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2004 he received the Grand Prix de Philosophie from the Academie Francaise for his book Les pratiques du moi.

"Addressing a range of issues both within and outside ethics and political philosophy, Charles Larmore's The Autonomy of Morality makes a distinctive and importance contribution to contemporary liberal thought." Social Theory and Practice, James W. Boettcher, Saint Joseph's University