The High Road of Humanity: The Seven Ethical Ages of Western ManThe High Road of Humanity is a cultural ethics. It is an exposition of the moral positions of the West, intended to accompany the intellectual positions of Western philosophy and society formulated in Levi's earlier Philosophy as Social Expression. In opposition to the nearly complete abstraction from actual moral life that is the common stance of the works in ethics in our time from positivism to applied ethics, Levi's aim is to take the process of moral thought back one step further from moral inquiry to its basis in the moral imagination. For Levi the moral life and moral discourse requires first of all an ideal that is shaped in the imagination, an image of the human. The seven ethical ages he discusses are the Greek aristocrat, Stoic sage, Christian saint, Renaissance prince, Enlightenment gentleman, the nineteenth-century merchant prince, and the professional man and women of today. He gathered the details of each historical figure or moral ideal and selected sculpture, paintings, and portraits to illustrate them. Levi's approach to moral philosophy is based on his lifelong study in the philosophy of culture. The foreword is by Donald Phillip Verene. |
Contents
| 5 | |
THREE | 31 |
FIVE | 58 |
SEVEN The NineteenthCentury Merchant Prince | 95 |
NINE | 123 |
About the Author | 139 |
7 | 143 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acquisition active Aesthetic Education Albert William Levi Andrew Carnegie Aristotle artistic arts Athenian Bernard Carnegie's Castiglione Cato Cato the Younger century character Christian Saint citizen conception contemporary cosmopolitan courtier Cozzens culture David Hume elegance Enlightenment Gentleman Epictetus epoch essay ethics expressed famous Federigo da Montefeltro Francis good-breeding grace Greek Aristocrat Henry Clay Frick Holmes Homer honor human humanistic Hume idea individual John Stuart Mill Journal of Aesthetic justice Kant letters literary Literature live logic manners Marcus Aurelius Martin of Tours medieval modern moral ideal moral imagination nature nineteenth-century Merchant Prince nobility noble passion perfect Periclean age Pericles Plato Plutarch political portrait principles professional qualities rational Renaissance Renaissance Prince responsibility saintly says sense Sir Philip Sidney social society spirit steel Stoic Sage Stoicism taste things tion tradition true University Urbino Verene Vico virtue wealth Western whole wisdom worldly