Paper cranes and mushroom clouds : the US-Japan conflict and the the function of ethics in historical writing
Historiography
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
2016
EISBN 9781443898379
Table of Contents; Preface; Acknowledgements; Chapter One; Chapter Two; Chapter Three; Chapter Four; Chapter Five; Chapter Six; References
Bernard Williams begins his skeptical look at the history of ethical theory with a reminder of where it began, with Socrates' question, "how should one live?" If ethics aims to address the question of "how one should live", then the work of historians may just be our greatest source of what Mill called "experiments in living" or narratives about the different ways in which humans have lived. Williams claimed that distance establishes a relativism that prevents us from looking to the distant past and asking whether that is "how one should live", or whether a particular historical practice const.
Bernard Williams begins his skeptical look at the history of ethical theory with a reminder of where it began, with Socrates' question, "how should one live?" If ethics aims to address the question of "how one should live", then the work of historians may just be our greatest source of what Mill called "experiments in living" or narratives about the different ways in which humans have lived. Williams claimed that distance establishes a relativism that prevents us from looking to the distant past and asking whether that is "how one should live", or whether a particular historical practice const.
