Ethics
I plan over the next week or so to post excerpts from an article written by Alice von Hildebrand entitled, “Unethical Ethics” that was published in the may 2006 issue of, “New oxford Review.”
Alice von Hildebrand is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Hunter College of the City University of New York.
The market is flooded with textbooks on ethics. Having taught this subject for many years in a secular university, I have been struck by the fact that all publications referring to a topic in which most students are interested -- namely, "how to live" -- give a prominent place to thinkers such as Aristippus of Cyrene, Baruch Spinoza, and Jeremy Bentham, to limit myself to the best known. We are entitled to assume that when a person writes a book on ethics, his concern will be to shed light on a way of life that is wise, worthwhile, and desirable, and that can be presented as a model, as something we should all strive for in order to live a human life worthy of the name. One is therefore baffled upon discovering that a prominent place is given to thinkers whose outlook on life is centered exclusively on pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Do we really need a "teacher" to learn that pleasure is agreeable and pain is hardship?
A brief perusal of the above-named thinkers' "ethical" views inevitably leads to the question: Why are their works categorized as "ethics," a branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of "good" and "evil"?
Alice von Hildebrand is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Hunter College of the City University of New York.
The market is flooded with textbooks on ethics. Having taught this subject for many years in a secular university, I have been struck by the fact that all publications referring to a topic in which most students are interested -- namely, "how to live" -- give a prominent place to thinkers such as Aristippus of Cyrene, Baruch Spinoza, and Jeremy Bentham, to limit myself to the best known. We are entitled to assume that when a person writes a book on ethics, his concern will be to shed light on a way of life that is wise, worthwhile, and desirable, and that can be presented as a model, as something we should all strive for in order to live a human life worthy of the name. One is therefore baffled upon discovering that a prominent place is given to thinkers whose outlook on life is centered exclusively on pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Do we really need a "teacher" to learn that pleasure is agreeable and pain is hardship?
A brief perusal of the above-named thinkers' "ethical" views inevitably leads to the question: Why are their works categorized as "ethics," a branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of "good" and "evil"?