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Purpose in the Universe

By Tim Mulgan

Product Image: Purpose in the Universe

Purpose in the Universe

By Tim Mulgan

0 - Default Title
Description
Two familiar worldviews dominate Western philosophy: materialist atheism and the benevolent God of the Abrahamic faiths. Tim Mulgan explores a third way. Ananthropocentric Purposivism claims that there is a cosmic purpose, but human beings are irrelevant to it. Purpose in the Universe developsa philosophical case for Ananthropocentric Purposivism that it is at least as strong as the case for either theism or atheism. The book borrows traditional theist arguments to defend a cosmic purpose. These include cosmological, teleological, ontological, meta-ethical, and mystical arguments. Itthen borrows traditional atheist arguments to reject a human-centred purpose. These include arguments based on evil, diversity, and the scale of the universe. Mulgan also highlights connections between morality and metaphysics, arguing that evaluative premises play a crucial and underappreciatedrole in metaphysical debates about the existence of God, and Ananthropocentric Purposivism mutually supports an austere consequentialist morality based on objective values. He concludes that, by drawing on a range of secular and religious ethical traditions, a non-human-centred cosmic purpose canground a distinctive human morality. Our moral practices, our view of the moral universe, and our moral theory are all transformed if we shift from the familiar choice between a universe without meaning and a universe where humans matter to the less self-aggrandising thought that, while it is aboutsomething, the universe is not about us.
Product details
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
444
Release Date:
2015-12-22
Publication Date:
2015-12-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press (UK)
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
0199646147
ISBN13:
9780199646142
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
828 g
Height:
161 cm
Width:
240 cm
Thickness:
28 cm
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