From Enlightenment to Receptivity: Rethinking Our Values

This new book by Michael Slote argues that Western philosophy on the whole has overemphasized rational control and autonomy at the expense of the important countervailing value and virtue of receptivity. Recently the ideas of caring and empathy have received a great deal of philosophical and public attention, but both these notions rest on the deeper and broader value of receptivity, and in From Enlightenment to Receptivity, Slote seeks to show that we need to focus more on receptivity if we are to attain a more balanced sense and understanding of what is important to us. Beginning with a critique of Enlightenment thinking that calls into question its denial of any central role to considerations of emotion and empathy, he goes on to show how a greater emphasis on these factors and on the receptivity that underlies them can give us a more realistic, balanced, and sensitive understanding of our core ethical and epistemological values. This means rejecting post-modernism's blanket rejection of reason and of compelling real values and recognizing, rather, that receptivity should play a major role in how we lead our lives as individuals, in how we relate to nature, in how we acquire knowledge about the world, and in how we relate morally and politically with others.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I: Beyond Enlightenment Foreword to Part I Chapter 1: Empathy and Objectivity Chapter 2: Epistemology and Emotion Chapter 3: Caring and Enlightenment Chapter 4: How Important Is Morality? Chapter 5: The Impossibility of Perfection Chapter 6: A New Picture Part II: Receptivity Foreword to Part II Chapter 7: Receptivity to Life Chapter 8: Green Thinking Chapter 9: From Enlightenment to Receptivity Chapter 10: The Virtue of Receptivity Conclusion

About the Author :
Michael Slote is UST Professor of Ethics at the University of Miami. A member of the Royal Irish Academy and former Tanner lecturer, his work has mainly been focused on ethics, political philosophy, moral psychology, and, most recently, the philosophy of education.

Review :
"In From Enlightenment to Receptivity Slote provides a nice point of entry both into themes from his earlier work and into a number of distinct subfields of philosophy. The book covers a range of topics in normative ethics, metaethics, epistemology, philosophy of religion, feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and environmental philosophy. And it is filled with interesting and provocative ideas. As such, it could be an enjoyable book to teach to an introductory undergraduate class... for the introductory or general reader, the book has much to recommend it." --Mind "This volume by Slote...is easily one of the best books on the importance of people's feelings to their moral judgments, and it deserves to be read widely. This reviewer could not put it down. Slote...writes simply and elegantly. His style makes the book accessible and inviting to all readers, even those who have no background in ethics.... The book constitutes a substantial contribution to contemporary moral thought. It will appeal to anyone interested in the role emotions play in ordinary decisions about how one lives one's life.... Highly recommended."--G.S. Bagwell, CHOICE "Those who, like me, have doubts about dominant contemporary ethical theories (particularly Kantian ones), and/or sympathies for care ethics and sentimentalism more widely, will find themselves quite receptive to the message and arguments of this book. The idea of receptivity is, I think, a welcome addition to the conversation, and it furthers and unifies worries that have been voiced piecemeal over the last few decades. I am less confident that the book will convert rationalists, because it is most successful where it paints its picture in broad strokes and there are many details yet to be filled in. But I hope that its arguments do help to prompt people to fill in those details and push the landscape of contemporary moral philosophy further toward greater recognition of the role that empathy and receptivity play in our daily lives and our philosophical thinking." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews