When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible
- ISBN-10
- 0190657596
- ISBN-13
- 9780190657598
- Category
- Philosophy
- Pages
- 192
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2017-06-01
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- Lisa Tessman
Description
Suppose that in an emergency evacuation of a hospital after a flood, not all of the patients can make it out alive. You are the doctor faced with the choice between abandoning these patients to die alone and in pain, or injecting them with a lethal dose of drugs, without consent, so that they die peacefully. Perhaps no one will be able to blame you whatever you decide, but, whichever action you choose, you will remain burdened by guilt. What happens, in cases like this, when, no matter what you do, you are destined for moral failure? What happens when there is no available means of doing the right thing? Human life is filled with such impossible moral decisions. These choices and case studies that demonstrate them form the focus of Lisa Tessman's arresting and provocative work. Many philosophers believe that there are simply no situations in which what you morally ought to do is something that you can't do, because they think that you can't be required to do something unless it's actually in your power to do it. Despite this, real life presents us daily with situations in which we feel that we have failed morally even when no right action would have been possible. Lisa Tessman boldly argues that sometimes we feel this way because we have encountered an 'impossible moral requirement.' Drawing on philosophy, empirical psychology, and evolutionary theory, When Doing the Right Thing Is Impossible explores how and why human beings have constructed moral requirements to be binding even when they are impossible to fulfill.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on what it is and why it Matters
By Karen WarrenWijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 27 . 32. Wijkman and Timberlake , Natural Disasters , 49 . 33. Seager , New State of the Earth Atlas , 121 .
-
Each Day a Renewed Beginning: Meditations for a Peaceful Journey
By Karen Casey7. Sometimes the things that frighten you the most can be the biggest sources of strength. —Iris Timberlake or Most of us learn as we mature that strength.
-
Emerging Trends in Continental Philosophy
By Todd May28 It is therefore not difficult to reconcile Badiou«s references to historical ... On the one hand, Badiou«s major essays on Rancière all deal with the ...
-
Pierre Bayle's Cartesian Metaphysics: Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy
By Todd RyanBayle offers a similar assessment in a letter to Minutoli: There has just been ... touchant la tran[s]substantiation, et leur conformité avec le calvinisme.
-
Negotiating a Settlement in Northern Ireland, 1969-2019
By John Coakley, Jennifer ToddHowever, acceptance of the deal was driven in part by threats of worse to come should agreement ... see Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006, s.
-
The Philosopher's Way
By Pearson Education, Pearson Education Staff, Inc.Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable.
-
Swimmer in a Dark Sea
By Pierce TimberlakeTake a tour through the mind of America's undiscovered philosopher: Pierce Timberlake. Swimmer in a Dark Sea is a dizzying ride through a dazzling array of profound concepts.
-
Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature
By Karen Warren, Duane L. Cady"This collection of works is ambitious, well documented, thoroughly—though not turgidly—referenced, and comprehensively indexed.
-
Ecological Feminism
By Karen Warren, Barbara Wells-HoweThe essays in this volume deal with a wide variety of subjects - the essential distinction between the "ecofeminist" and the "ecofeminine," the link between violence and environmental exploitation, feminism's relationship to animal rights ...
-
Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment
By Karen Green6 Davies, Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Otis Warren, 228; Franklin Bowditch Dexter (ed.), The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, ...