Science and the Structure of Ethics

Abraham Edel (1908-2007), a distinguished American moral and social philosopher, was research professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and before that the City College of New York. Some of his numerous books are Science and the Structure of Ethics, Aristotle and His Philosophy, and Ethical Judgment.

• I. The Nature and Complexity of the Problem 1. Issues in the Relation of Science and Ethics” 2. The Place of Scientific Results in Ethical Theory 3. The Role of Scientific Method in Ethical Theory 4. The Impact of the Scientific Temper in Ethical Theory 5. Moralities 6. Methodological Approaches in Ethics 7. The Structure of an Ethical Theory II. The Theory of Existential Perspectives 8. The Concept of an Existential Perspective (EP) 9. Role of Existential Perspective within an Ethical Theory 10. Overtly Scientific Existential Perspectives: Physical and Biological 11. Overtly Scientific Existential Perspectives: Psychological 12. Overtly Scientific Existential Perspectives: Sociocultural and Sociohistorical 13. Science in Theological and Metaphysical Existential Perspectives 14. Science in Transcendence Existential Perspectives 15. Evaluation of Existential Perspectives III. The Role of Science in Conceptual and Methodological Analysis 16. Conceptual-Methodological Frameworks 17. Are There Workable Concepts of Moral Phenomena and Moral Experience? 18. Ethical Concept-Families and Their Existential Linkage 19. Organization, Generalization, Systematization 20. Validation, Verification, Reasoning, Justification 21. Application and Evaluative Processes IV. Decision, Freedom, and Responsibility 22. Evaluative Processes in Unstructured Situations 23. Toward a Scientific Study of Freedom and Responsibility 24. Toward a Strategy for Solution of the Free-Will Problem in Ethics 25. The Creative Temper and the Scientific Temper