Genealogy of Our Present Moral Disarray. An Essay in Comparative Philosophy
| Author: | Makolkin, Anna | |
| Year: | 2000 | |
| Pages: | 220 | |
| ISBN: | 0-7734-7800-0 978-0-7734-7800-8 | |
| Price: | $179.95 + shipping | |
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This monograph examines the origins of modern and modernist moral confusion, deterioration of the Judeo-Christian values and contemporary boundaries between Right and Wrong, tracing the ethical shift to the ideas of Hobbes and Bentham, the peculiar universes of Schopenhauer and Dostoevsky, the new religion of Tolstoy and the destroyed God of Nietzsche, ending with the psychoanalytical commandments of Freud and the mire of sexual identity of Foucault and Paglia. It is a contribution to the history of ideas and represents an anatomy of modern ethics as wells a critique of modern and postmodern philosophy. It also deals with the moral irresponsibility of the thinkers whose casual experimentation with values and ideas about human relationships has brought onto the pathway of moral confusion.
Reviews
“This book is ambitious and learned without being either overly technical or layered with exhaustive references to scholarly commentators.. . . show[s] a very discerning sociological mind, and it is perhaps this ability to distill rich sociological insights from philosophical texts that marks one of the book’s greatest strengths. Whether or not one agrees with Makolkin’s thesis that contemporary rebellions against the straightjacket of morality are doomed to failure, there is much insight to be gained from this enthusiastic reader of modern texts.” – Richard Wellen
“Makolkin manages to deal quite extensively with every kind of philosophy under her scrutiny, and gives concise and yet sufficiently detailed and often revealing and novel accounts of its basic tenets, development, and influence. Her writing is engaging and lucid, and the cohesion between the disparate chapters is exemplary, as she pays careful attention to the rippling-wave effects of one philosopher upon another or sometimes several, anticipating future developments or retracing the past. . . . This timely book should be of interest to both scholars and the general public.” – Galina Kruberg
“Makolkin manages to deal quite extensively with every kind of philosophy under her scrutiny, and gives concise and yet sufficiently detailed and often revealing and novel accounts of its basic tenets, development, and influence. Her writing is engaging and lucid, and the cohesion between the disparate chapters is exemplary, as she pays careful attention to the rippling-wave effects of one philosopher upon another or sometimes several, anticipating future developments or retracing the past. . . . This timely book should be of interest to both scholars and the general public.” – Galina Kruberg