The Concept Of The Theory Of Charles Taylor's Good

This dissertation focuses on a key concept in Charles Taylor’s moral philosophy, good, which is also a basic concept in Taylor’s political theory.The first chapter explains Taylor’s realist moral ontology, which is based on his criticism of some contemporary moral philosophy such as John Mackie’s subjectivism/relativism, Hare’s prescriptivism and other different schools of utilitarianism. It also introduces some fundamental features of his realist moral philosophy, such as strong valuation, qualitative distinction and his richer and broader view about "good", comparing with the aforementioned mainstream moral theories.The second and the third chapters bring into light the new goods, such as the individual freedom and self-responsibility, benevolence and the emphasis on the alleviation of suffering, self-expression that based on our being as linguistic animals, etc. by a "historical narrative" of the three "transformations" that happened in Western history:the internalization, the affirmation of the ordinary life and the "expressive turn" started from the Romanticism movement. The two chapters also trace the moral sources or constitutive goods of these changes, which are the impetuses that move people to think them as good and act accordingly. For example, Taylor argued that the original constitutive good of the affirmation of the ordinary life was theological, it came from the Protestant Reformation, it was then transformed into providencial order through Locke and Shaftsbury and Hutchinson’s Deism, then became naturalism in the radical Enlightenment, whose dominant moral philosophy is utilitarianism, which reduces good to the happiness and denies any moral source or constitutive good.The fourth chapter summarizes the three "constellations" of the moral sources of the modern self: the first is the original theistic one, in traditional Christianity, God is the source; the second is the "naturalism of disengaged reason" which started to be widely accepted since the radical Enlightenment; the third one emerged from Romanticism and continues in certain strands of modern art and literature, its moral source is associated with individual creativity and expression. This chapter also shows Taylor’s "cultural" approach to issues of modernity or the "Enlightenment project", such as instrumentalism and individualism, and how different his understanding about the conflicts of modernity from some other contemporary thinkers and philosophers based on his interpretation of the conflicts between the different moral sources.The final and fifth chapter interprets the two "transcendental" sources in Taylor’s moral philosophy. The first is the "deep ecology", of which Taylor draws inspirations both from the Romanticism, with its criticism of Enlightenment’s disengaged and instrumental view of nature and Herder and Heidegger’s understanding of language, which would help us to form a deeper relationship with others and the nature. Another such "transcendental" source is God in Christianity. This part touches on Taylor’s view on secularization, his criticism of the "exclusive" humanism and his effort of trying to bring back God’s love as a source in our moral life. By putting him in a dialogue with an "agnostic " pluralist William Connolly, this chapter also tries to show the challenge Taylor’s view faces in a pluralism contemporary world.