Over the course of the last 15 years, Constantine Sandis has advanced our understanding of the role that action plays in shaping our moral thought. In this collection of his best essays in the philosophy of action, Sandis brings together updated versions of his writings, accompanied by a new introduction. Read collectively they demonstrate the breadth of his interests and ability to relate to broader issues within the culture, connecting debates in philosophical psychology about motivation, negligence, and moral responsibility with Greek tragedy, social psychology and literature.
Along this path from action to ethics, Sandis engages with Hegel, Wittgenstein, Anscombe, Ricoeur, Davidson, and Dretske, together with contemporary authors such as Jennifer Hornsby and Jonathan Dancy. As he responds to each thinker and theme, he develops his own philosophical position, the key thesis of which is that philosophy of action without ethics is empty, ethics without philosophy of action is blind.
By:
Professor Constantine Sandis (University of Hertfordshire UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781350235113
ISBN 10: 1350235113
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 22 February 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Actions, Reasons, and Ethics Part I. Action 1. Action Cubes and Traces 2. What Is It to Do Nothing? 3. Are We Superhuman or Are We Dancer? Action and Will in the Novels of Anthony Powell 4. Reasoning to Action 5. How to Act Against Your Better Judgement Part II. Reasons 6. The Objects of Action Explanation 7. Dretske on the Causation of Behaviour 8. Verbal Reports and ‘Real Reasons’: Confabulation and Conflation 9. Can Action Explanations Ever Be Non-Factive? 10. Are Reasons Like Shampoo? Part III. Ethics 11. Gods and Mental States: The Causation of Action in Ancient Tragedy and Modern Philosophy of Mind 12. Motivated by the Gods: Compartmentalized Agency and Responsibility 13. The Man Who Mistook his Handlung for a Tat: Hegel on Oedipus and Other Tragic Thebans 14. The Doing and the Deed: Action in Normative Ethics 15. Ethics and Action Theory: An Unhappy Divorce Appendix: Basic Actions and Individuation Notes Bibliography Index
Constantine Sandis is Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, Founding Director of Lex Academic and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Reviews for From Action to Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Reasons and Responsibility
These essays show Sandis at his wide-ranging best. Homer and Anthony Powell rub shoulders with Hegel and Davidson in a series of imaginative and thought-provoking discussions of practical reason, action and ethics. * Roger Teichmann, Lecturer in Philosophy, St Hilda's College, University of Oxford, UK *
