The Autonomy of Morality

In The Autonomy of Morality Charles Larmore challenges two ideas that have shaped the modern mind. The world he argues is not a realm of value-neutral fact nor is reason our capacity to impose principles of our own devising on an alien reality. Rather reason consists in being responsive to reasons for thought and action that arise from the world itself. In particular Larmore shows that the moral good has an authority that speaks for itself. Only in this light does the true basis of a liberal political order come into view as well as the role of unexpected goods in the makeup of a life lived well. Charles Larmore is W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. The author of The Morals of Modernity and The Romantic Legacy he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2004 he received the Grand Prix de Philosophie from the Acadmie Franaise for his book Les pratiques du moi.