Premium
THE PARADOXICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MORALITY AND MORAL WORTH
Author(s) -
Smilansky Saul
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2005.00386.x
Subject(s) - morality , mainstream , environmental ethics , sociology , moral psychology , moral disengagement , social cognitive theory of morality , epistemology , social psychology , law , psychology , philosophy , political science
If the social environment were arranged so that most people in the West could, with relatively little effort, be morally good to a reasonable degree, would this be a good thing? I claim that it is not entirely obvious that we should say yes. This is no idle question: mainstream Western social morality today seems to be approaching the prospect for a morality that is not taxing. This question has substantial theoretical interest because exploring it will help us understand the paradoxical relationship between morality and moral worth.