Wanting to Be Better: On the Self-Defeating Character of Moral Perfection
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216275%3A25210%2F20%3A39916583" target="_blank" >RIV/00216275:25210/20:39916583 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40742-1_11" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40742-1_11</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40742-1_11" target="_blank" >10.1007/978-3-030-40742-1_11</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Wanting to Be Better: On the Self-Defeating Character of Moral Perfection
Original language description
In the closing part of his paper “Moral Integrity”, Peter Winch elaborates on J. L. Stocks’s point that “morality can require that we abandon absolutely any specifiable end, including the end of one’s own moral perfection”. In the opening parts of my paper, I question whether aspiration to moral improvement can be in genuine conflict with morality and argue that it depends on how one conceives of the relation between an “end” and one’s interests. Winch himself proceeds to claim that moral perfection cannot be conceived in an external way as an end and illustrates his point with the example of Father Sergius. I elaborate on his analysis of the aspiration for moral perfection and show that if such an aspiration is not regulated by the virtue of humility, it backfires into forms of self-centred corruption, such as self-deception and pride. Moral ambition can thus lead to wrongdoing performed in the very name of morality. This formulation of Stocks’s claim is illustrated in the last part by the example of banker Bulstrode, whose proud pursuit of moral perfection and consequent self-deception results in a crime.
Czech name
—
Czech description
—
Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
—
OECD FORD branch
60302 - Ethics (except ethics related to specific subfields)
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/EF15_003%2F0000425" target="_blank" >EF15_003/0000425: Centre for Ethics</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)
Others
Publication year
2020
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Ethics, society and politics : themes from the philosophy of Peter Winch
ISBN
978-3-030-40741-4
Number of pages of the result
6
Pages from-to
167-182
Number of pages of the book
286
Publisher name
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Place of publication
Cham
UT code for WoS chapter
—