Modern Moral Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

A masterful history of nineteenth-century ethics by a leading moral philosopher that puts fresh perspectives on the foundations of morality.

Stephen Darwall's philosophical history of ethics is a benchmark contribution to the history of ideas. It offers illuminating new perspectives on the founding members of the 'continental' tradition – Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche – revealing what was novel in the period and what remains relevant to contemporary moral philosophy.Stephen Darwall is a moral philosopher who has played a central role in contemporary debates around the foundation of ethics. This book is a sequel to his earlier volume Modern Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to Kant, and like its predecessor it explores the history of the period through its key ethical thinkers. Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche – the founding members of the 'continental' tradition – are masterfully examined as they are brought into vivid conversation with both analytic philosophy and the mainstream Anglophone philosophical tradition. The author addresses topics which include the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill; the anti-naturalism of Sidgwick and the British idealists; and Nietzsche's late-century critique of morality. He reveals that all these canonical thinkers – just like their precursors and successors – were wrestling with fundamental and enduring ethical problems, even when they claimed otherwise or were presenting their views in new and challenging terms.