Experience and Conduct
A Philosophical Enquiry into Practical Thinking

This study details the concepts of morality, prudence, justice, welfare and legality, as well as the logical foundations, epistemology and metaphysics of practical thinking.

Stephan Körner (Author)

9780521299435, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 September 1980

280 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

First published in 1976, this is a comprehensive study of practical thinking. Professor Körner shows the complex relations which a person's practical attitudes bear to each other, and shows in particular how their moral or prudential character depends not only on their content and form but also on their place in the system constituted by them. There are detailed accounts of the concepts of morality, prudence, justice, welfare and legality, as well as the logical foundations, epistemology and metaphysics of practical thinking. The book is intended for philosophers and for those political theorists and social scientists who are concerned with the philosophical presuppositions and implications of their enquiries. The book is deliberately organized so that those with less interest in the logical issues dealt with in Part I can proceed quickly and easily to the more substantive issues in Parts II and III.

Preface
Introduction: the place and plan of the enquiry
Part I. On the Formal Structure of Practical Thinking: 1. The logical foundations of practical thinking
2. On the formal structure of ontological and deontological constraints
3. On the formal structure of probabilistic thinking
4. On the formal structure of thinking about practical preferences
Part II. Aspects and Kinds of Practical Evaluation: 5. On chosen interventions in the course of nature
6. Agents and their actions
7. Practical attitudes: their objects and levels
8. On some common characterizations of actions and agents
9. Principles of practical evaluation
10. On the relation between evaluative and regulative standards of conduct
11. Morality
12. Justice
13. Prudence and welfare
14. Morality, prudence and legality
15. On pragmatic and practical idealizations
Part III. On the Epistemology and Metaphysics of Practical Thinking: 16. On the relation between cognitive and practical rationality
17. On argument and evidence in morals
18. On understanding other moralities and the limits of moral pluralism
19. On the analysis of moral systems as a topic for speculation and a source of moral guidance
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Philosophy [HP]