Background
Kekes, John was born on November 22, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary. Came to the United States, 1965, naturalized, 1977. Son of Eugene and Anna (Borsodi) Kekes.
( Arguing that the prevalence of evil presents a fundamen...)
Arguing that the prevalence of evil presents a fundamental problem for our secular sensibility, John Kekes develops a conception of character-morality as a response. He shows that the main sources of evil are habitual, unchosen actions produced by our character defects and that we can increase our control over the evil we cause by cultivating a reflective temper.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691020957/?tag=2022091-20
(In this systematic and scathing attack on the dominant co...)
In this systematic and scathing attack on the dominant contemporary version of liberalism, John Kekes challenges political assumptions shared by the majority of people in Western societies. Egalitarianism, as it's widely known, holds that a government ought to treat all citizens with equal consideration. Kekes charges that belief in egalitarianism rests on illusions that prevent people from facing unpleasant truths.Kekes, a major voice in modern political thought, argues that differences among human beings in the areas of morality, reasonability, legality, and citizenship are too important for governance to ignore. In a rigorous criticism of prominent egalitarian thinkers, including Dworkin, Nagel, Nussbaum, Rawls, Raz, and Singer, Kekes charges that their views present a serious threat to both morality and reason. For Kekes, certain "inegalitarian truths" are obvious: people should get what they deserve, those who are good and those who are evil should not be treated as if they had the same moral worth, people should not be denied what they have earned in order to benefit those who have not earned it, and individuals should be held responsible for their actions. His provocative book will compel many readers to question their faith in liberalism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IEW0Z2E/?tag=2022091-20
(This original and ambitious book aims to change how we th...)
This original and ambitious book aims to change how we think about good lives. The perennial debates about good lives―the disagreements caused by conflicts between scientific, religious, moral, historical, aesthetic, and subjective modes of reflection―typically end in an impasse. This leaves the underlying problems of the meaning of life, the possibility of free action, the place of morality in good lives, the art of life, and human self-understanding as intractable as they have ever been.The way out of this impasse, argues Kekes, is to abandon the assumption shared by the contending parties that the solutions of these problems can be rational only if they apply universally to all lives in all contexts. He believes that solutions may vary with lives and contexts and still be rational. Kekes defends a pluralistic alternative to absolutism and relativism that will, he holds, take philosophy in a new and more productive direction.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801438055/?tag=2022091-20
( Moral imagination, according to John Kekes, is indispen...)
Moral imagination, according to John Kekes, is indispensable to a fulfilling and responsible life. By correcting a parochial view of the possibilities available to us and overcoming mistaken assumptions about our limitations, moral imagination liberates us from self-imposed narrowness. It enlarges life by enabling us to reflect more deeply and widely about how we should live. The material for this reflection, Kekes believes, is supplied by literature. Each of the eleven chapters of the book focuses on a novel, play, or autobiography that exemplifies the protagonist's reflective self-evaluation. Kekes shows the enduring significance of these protagonists' successes or failures and how we might apply what they teach to our very different characters and circumstances. Kekes discusses John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, the Oedipus tragedies by Sophocles, Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Henry James's The Ambassadors and The Golden Bowl, Montaigne's Essays, a story by Herodotus, and Arthur Koestler's Arrival and Departure. Throughout, Kekes shows that moral thought must be concrete, not abstract; that good reasons for or against how we live and what choices we make are available but must be particular, not universal; and that the rigid separation of literature, psychology, and moral thought is detrimental to all three.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801445116/?tag=2022091-20
( In this study, John Kekes develops the view that good l...)
In this study, John Kekes develops the view that good lives depend on maintaining a balance between one's moral tradition and individuality. Our moral tradition provides the forms of good lives and the permissible ways of trying to achieve them. But to do so, the author argues, we must grow in self-knowledge and self-control to make our characters suitable for realizing our aspirations. In addressing general readers as well as scholars, Kekes makes these philosophical views concrete by drawing on a rich variety of literary sources, including, among others, the works of Sophocles, Henry James, Tolstoy, and Edith Wharton. The first half of the work concentrates on social morality, establishing the conditions all good lives must meet. The second discusses personal morality, the sphere of individuality. Its development enables us to discover what is important to us and how we can fit our personal aspirations into the forms of life our moral tradition provides. Kekes's argument derives its inspiration from Aristotle's objectivism, Hume's emphasis on custom and feeling, and Mill's concentration on individuals and their experiments in living. This book is a nontechnical yet closely reasoned attempt to provide a contemporary answer to the age-old question of how to live well.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691023484/?tag=2022091-20
(In this systematic and scathing attack on the dominant co...)
In this systematic and scathing attack on the dominant contemporary version of liberalism, John Kekes challenges political assumptions shared by the majority of people in Western societies. Egalitarianism, as it's widely known, holds that a government ought to treat all citizens with equal consideration. Kekes charges that belief in egalitarianism rests on illusions that prevent people from facing unpleasant truths.Kekes, a major voice in modern political thought, argues that differences among human beings in the areas of morality, reasonability, legality, and citizenship are too important for governance to ignore. In a rigorous criticism of prominent egalitarian thinkers, including Dworkin, Nagel, Nussbaum, Rawls, Raz, and Singer, Kekes charges that their views present a serious threat to both morality and reason. For Kekes, certain "inegalitarian truths" are obvious: people should get what they deserve, those who are good and those who are evil should not be treated as if they had the same moral worth, people should not be denied what they have earned in order to benefit those who have not earned it, and individuals should be held responsible for their actions. His provocative book will compel many readers to question their faith in liberalism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080147339X/?tag=2022091-20
( Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornogra...)
Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornography, AIDS, and similar issues naturally lead to the question of whether there are any values that can be ultimately justified, or whether values are simply conventional. John Kekes argues that the present moral and political uncertainties are due to a deep change in our society from a dogmatic to a pluralistic view of values. Dogmatism is committed to there being only one justifiable system of values. Pluralism recognizes many such systems, and yet it avoids a chaotic relativism according to which all values are in the end arbitrary. Maintaining that good lives must be reasonable, but denying that they must conform to one true pattern, Kekes develops and justifies a pluralistic account of good lives and values, and works out its political, moral, and personal implications.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691032300/?tag=2022091-20
(In his recent book Against Liberalism, philosopher John K...)
In his recent book Against Liberalism, philosopher John Kekes argued that liberalism as a political system is doomed to failure by its internal inconsistencies. In this companion volume, he makes a compelling case for conservatism as the best alternative. His is the first systematic description and defense of the basic assumptions underlying conservative thought.Conservatism, Kekes maintains, is concerned with the political arrangements that enable members of a society to live good lives. These political arrangements are based on skepticism about ideologies, pluralism about values, traditionalism about institutions, and pessimism about human perfectibility. The political morality of conservatism requires the protection of universal conditions of all good lives, social conditions that vary with societies, and individual conditions that reflect differences in character and circumstance. Good lives, according to Kekes, depend equally on pursuing possibilities that these conditions establish and on setting limits to their violations.Attempts to make political arrangements reflect these basic tenets of conservatism are unavoidably imperfect. Kekes concludes, however, that they represent a better hope for the future than any other possibility.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801485525/?tag=2022091-20
( "Evil is the most serious of our moral problems. All ov...)
"Evil is the most serious of our moral problems. All over the world cruelty, greed, prejudice, and fanaticism ruin the lives of countless victims. Outrage provokes outrage. Millions nurture seething hatred of real or imagined enemies, revealing savage and destructive tendencies in human nature. Understanding this challenges our optimistic illusions about the effectiveness of reason and morality in bettering human lives. But abandoning these illusions is vitally important because they are obstacles to countering the threat of evil. The aim of this book is to explain why people act in these ways and what can be done about it."―John Kekes The first part of this book is a detailed discussion of six horrible cases of evil: the Albigensian Crusade of about 1210; Robespierre's Terror of 1793–94; Franz Stangl, who commanded a Nazi death camp in 1943–44; the 1969 murders committed by Charles Manson and his "family"; the "dirty war" conducted by the Argentinean military dictatorship of the late 1970s; and the activities of a psychopath named John Allen, who recorded reminiscences in 1975. John Kekes includes these examples not out of sensationalism, but rather to underline the need to hold vividly in our minds just what evil is. The second part shows why, in Kekes's view, explanations of evil inspired by Christianity and the Enlightenment fail to account for these cases and then provides an original explanation of evil in general and of these instances of it in particular.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801473810/?tag=2022091-20
Kekes, John was born on November 22, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary. Came to the United States, 1965, naturalized, 1977. Son of Eugene and Anna (Borsodi) Kekes.
Bachelor, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 1961. Master of Arts, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 1962. Doctor of Philosophy, Australian National University, 1967.
Instructor to associate professor philosophy, California State University, Northridge, 1965-1971; professor, U. Saskatchewan, Regina, Canada, 1971-1974; professor, State University of New York, Albany, since 1974; department chairman philosophy, State University of New York, Albany, 1974-1977; professor philosophy public policy, State University of New York, Albany, since 1981. Senior research fellow Center for Philosophy of Science, U. Pittsburgh, 1984-1985. Visiting professor United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, 1985-1986, National U. Singapore, 1989.
( Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornogra...)
( Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornogra...)
(In this systematic and scathing attack on the dominant co...)
(In this systematic and scathing attack on the dominant co...)
( Arguing that the prevalence of evil presents a fundamen...)
(In his recent book Against Liberalism, philosopher John K...)
( In this study, John Kekes develops the view that good l...)
("A well-thought-out project, engaging, enlightening, and ...)
( Moral imagination, according to John Kekes, is indispen...)
(This original and ambitious book aims to change how we th...)
( "Evil is the most serious of our moral problems. All ov...)
(Book by Kekes, John)
Member American Philosophical Association, Royal Institute Philosophy.
Married Jean Justilliano, May 20, 1968.