Morality and Metaphysics

Charles Larmore is W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in the Humanities at Brown University. He is author of thirteen books, including The Morals of Modernity (Cambridge, 1996), Les pratiques du moi (2004), The Autonomy of Morality (Cambridge, 2008), Das Selbst in seinem Verhältnis zu sich und zu anderen (2017), and What is Political Philosophy? (2020).

• Introduction; Part I. The Structure and Scope of the Moral Point of View: 1. Reflection and Morality; 2. The Idea of Duties to Oneself; 3. The Ethics of Reading; 4. The Holes in Holism; Part II. Self and World: 5. Kant and the Meanings of Autonomy; 6. Moral Philosophy and Metaphysical Evasion; 7. The Conditions of Human Freedom; 8. Self-Knowledge and Commitment.

'In resolute opposition to popular expressivist and constitutivist views that have emerged from the traditions of Hume and Kant, Charles Larmore offers an account of morality that does not shy away from its metaphysical commitments. Starting from the contention that moral judgments purport to describe attitude-independent moral facts, which furnish objective reasons that can move us to act so far as we are rational, Larmore develops an ontologically robust account of these reasons as constituting a distinct dimension of reality, not reducible to the physical and psychological realms countenanced by contemporary naturalism. The fruit of long reflection, this erudite and passionately argued book merits the attention of anyone interested in these topics.' Stephen Engstrom, University of Pittsburgh