Ethics and Intrinsic Value

Roderick M. Chisholm is frequently honored as one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, an heir to Brentano and Meinong, who combined phenomenology and analytic philosophy. The present volume contains, at Chisholm's own will, the detailed 'Academy Lectures', a series held at the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein, which Chisholm visited several times. Besides his thorough critical investigations into skepticism, knowledge, probability, and belief, in which he develops original ideas about a 'doxastic ethics' of intellectual consent, the book contains collected papers chosen by Chisholm himself as representative of his ethical writings, including his thought on absolute and never overridden moral obligations (referring both to what we never ought to do and what we always ought to do). This Chisholmean version of a nonformalistic, deontic, antiutilitarian, anticonsequentialist, and nonteleological but eminently positive ethics based on intrinsic values deserves serious study.