Sam Harris ve své knize The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (2010) tvrdí, že otázka morálních hodnot není ničím jiným než otázkou po blahu vědomých bytostí. Ve svém výkladu si Harris klade tři úkoly: etablovat etiku jakožto plně racionální a ideálně vědeckou disciplínu, posílit a obhájit naturalismus a ustanovit smysluplnost lidského života na nenáboženské bázi. Harrisova kniha se setkala s odmítnutím v odborných recenzích, avšak ne všechny kritiky jsou oprávněné a skutečný problém s Harrisovým přístupem podle mne leží jinde, než se kritici domnívají. Existují nejméně tři důvody, proč odmítnout Harrisovu koncepci morálky jakožto vědy. Prvním je konfuzní pojetí vědy, se kterým souvisí absence čehokoli vědeckého v Harrisově popisu etických problémů či jejich řešení. Druhý důvod je nekoherentní postup při výkladu původu hodnot. A konečně posledním důvodem k odmítnutí Harrisovy vize je podoba života, kterou nám nabízí jakožto výsledek přijetí etiky založené na vědě., Sam Harris in his book The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (2010) argues that the question of moral values is none other than the question of the happiness of conscious beings. In his account Harris sets himself three tasks: to establish ethics as a fully rational and purely scientific discipline, to reinforce and defend naturalism, and to rest the meaning of human life on a non-religious grounding. Harris’ book has met with a negative reaction in journal reviews, but not all the criticisms are justified and the real problem with Harris’ approach, in my view, is different to what his critics suppose. There are at least three reasons why we should reject Harris’ conception of morality as a science. The first is his confused conception of science which brings with it the absence of any scientific (on Harris’ understanding) ethical problems and of their solution. The second reason is an incoherent approach in his account of the origin of values. And finally, the last reason for rejecting Harris’ vision is the form of life which he offers us as the result of accepting ethics founded on science., Jakub Jirsa., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
The theme of this article is the concept of community in the writings of Charles Taylor. It treats as its starting point both the significance attributed by him to this concept as well as his reluctance to being labelled a communitarian. The reconstruction of the concept is based on two of Taylor’s major works, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity and A Secular Age. In the former the focus is on the notion of moral space which is deployed in a critique of individualist ontology, but which does not lead him to claim that the community has some special status. The reconstruction of the latter book focuses on the description of developments leading to modern forms of sociality that have superseded previous forms of social organization that were based, to a large degree, on local communities. In conclusion, I describe Taylor’s normative concept of community which is an integral part of his vision of “fullness”, which transcends both individualism and the traditional, exclusive communities., Ondřej Štěch., and Obsahuje poznámky a bibliografii