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A beloved best-seller in France, Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants makes philosophy fun, tactile, and popular. Moral thinking is simple, Ruwen Ogien argues, and as inherent as the senses. In our daily experiences, in the situations we confront and the scenes we witness, we develop an understanding of right and wrong as sophisticated as the moral outlook of the world's most gifted philosophers. We can draw on this knowledge to navigate life's most perplexing problems, and ethics becomes second nature. Ogien's goal is not to show how difficult it is to determine right from wrong or how easy it is for humans to become monsters or react like saints. Helping us tap into the registers of wisdom and feeling we already possess in our ethical "toolboxes," he encourages readers to question moral presuppositions and rules; embrace an intuitive sense of dignity, virtue, and justice; and pursue a pluralist ethics better suited to the principles of human kindness.
List of contents
Preface: An Antimanual of EthicsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: What Is the Use of Thought Experiments?Part I. Problems1. Emergencies2. The Child Who Is Drowning in a Pond3. A Transplant Gone Mad4. Confronting a Furious Crowd5. The Killer Trolley6. Incest in All Innocence7. The Amoralist8. The Experience Machine9. Is a Short and Mediocre Life Preferable to No Life at All?10. I Would Have Preferred Never to Have Been Born11. Must We Eliminate Animals in Order to Liberate Them?12. The Utility Monster13. A Violinist Has Been Plugged Into Your Back14. Frankenstein, Minister of Health15. Who Am I Without My Organs?16. And If Sexuality Were Free?17. It Is Harder to Do Good Intentionally Than It Is to Do Evil18. We Are Free, Even If Everything Is Written in Advance19. Monsters and SaintsPart II. The Ingredients of the Moral "Cuisine"20. Intuitions and Rules21. A Little Method!22. What Remains of Our Moral Intuitions?23. Where Has the Moral Instinct Gone?24. A Philosopher Aware of the Limits of His Moral Intuitions Is Worth Two Others, Indeed More25. Understand the Elementary Rules of Moral Reasoning26. Dare to Criticize the Elementary Rules of Moral ArgumentConclusionGlossaryNotesIndex
About the author
Ruwen Ogien holds doctorates in both philosophy and social anthropology. He is a director of research in moral philosophy at the CNRS and sits on the editorial board of the review Raison Publique. His most recent works include Le corps et l'argent and La vie, la mort, l'etat: le débat bioéthique
Summary
Translation of: L'influence de l'odeur des croissants chauds sur la bontae humaine.
Report
" Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants is perhaps Ogien at his very best.The richness of this book is that Ogien endeavors to do philosophy from the reality of lived experiences rather than the kind of imaginary reflection that is so characteristic of much of philosophy." Laurence Thomas, Syracuse University
