Lectures on Ethics, 1946

This volume presents a series of lectures given by P. F. Strawson to final-year undergraduates at the University of Wales, Bangor, in the autumn term of 1946. Strawson was appointed to a lectureship at Bangor immediately after his military service in World War Two; he held this post for only one year before returning to Oxford, to a teaching position at University College. He eventually became one of the leading figures in twentieth-century philosophy. The lectures survive in manuscript form in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and have been prepared for publication by Jonathan Dancy. Lectures on Ethics, 1946 contains the germ of Strawson's developed thought on freedom, moral attitudes, and ethical ideals, with an unusual level of attention being paid to contemporary psychological research. Other topics covered include the contrast between consequentialist and other moral theories, the analysis of moral judgements, and the nature of moral obligation.

P. F. Strawson

P. F. Strawson (1919-2006) was a professor at Oxford from 1968 to 1987. Prior to that, he taught at University of Wales, Bangor in the academic year 1946-47. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1960, became a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts of Sciences in 1971, and was an Honorary Fellow of St John's, University, and Magdalen Colleges, Oxford. Strawson was knighted in 1977 for his outstanding contribution to philosophy. His influential works include Individuals (1959), The Bounds of Sense (1966), and Freedom and Resentment (1974).

Jonathan Dancy is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin.

Foreword, Jonathan DancyLectures on EthicsElementary Ethics - Lecture SchemeLecture 1. The Disputes of Moral PhilosophersLecture 2Lecture 3Lecture 4Lecture 5Lecture 6. The Dualism of Motive in Kant: ObligationLecture 7. The Dualism in Motive: Egoistic Desires and Disinterested DesiresLecture 8. Moral Development: Duty, Motive and InstinctLecture 9. The Genesis of Obligation: Duty and ReasonLecture 10. Duties and Goods and 'Rightness'Lecture 11. The Epistemological QuestionLecture 12. The Analysis of Moral JudgementsLecture 13. The Problem of Freedom