Practical Ethics in Eighteenth Century Britain

FAIN: FT-60442-13

Colin Heydt
University of South Florida (Tampa, FL 33620-9951)

Practical Ethics in Eighteenth Century Britain reconstructs the history of practical ethics in Britain, focusing on the period from the publication of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks (1711) to early British responses to the French Revolution (c. 1791). The book's principal goal is to identify the conventional philosophical attitudes on the content of morality, which include the determination of our moral relations (to God, self, and others) and the specific duties, rights, and virtues we are bound to respect or realize. My contention is that numerous errors in the scholarly literature about, for instance, the originality, intended audience, and point of philosophical argument would be avoided if there were greater awareness about what counts as the conventional in the eighteenth century. I will use the term covered by this stipend to compose one of the final chapters in this book.

Associated Products