Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism

By David L. Norton

Book Overview

What is the meaning of life? Modern professional philosophy has largely renounced the attempt to answer this question and has restricted itself to the pursuit of more esoteric truths. Not so David Norton. Following in the footsteps of Plato and Aristotle, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Jung and Maslow, he sets forth a distinctive vision of the individual's search for his place in the scheme of things.

Norton's theory of individualism is rooted in the eudaimonistic ethics of the Creeks, who viewed each person as innately possessing a unique potential it was his destiny to fulfill. Very much the same idea resurfaced in modern times with the British idealists and Continental existentialists. The author reviews these antecedents, showing how his theory differs from those of his predecessors.

After a fascinating chapter on "The Stages of Life," Norton shows how the mature consciousness of one's destiny leads to direct, intimate knowledge of other persons, and how this in turn provides the basis for social morality. The conception of justice in which this theory culminates, rooted as it is in essential human differences, provides a challenging alternative to the much-discussed theories of Rawls and Nozick.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691019754
• ISBN13: 9780691019758
• Release Date: February 1977
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.6" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

An inspiring and wonderful, yet analytical work on ethics.

David Norton's book is an long overdue corrective on years of abuse heaped upon ethical individualism in text books on ethics. Norton develops the case for an individualism that sees human nature along lines of such classical thinkers as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, instead of Thomas Hobbes (who is usually named as the founder of modern individualism). The good human life is, by Norton's account, not manifest is constant, relentless desire- satisfaction, so an ethical individualist does not amount to a cruel, self-indulgent person but someone who realizes in himself the full measure of potentiality as a human being, including a robust sociality. This necessarily leads to a virtuous life, especially a life of moral integrity. Norton has given us a wonderful alternative to the ethics of altruism or self-denial without the silly alternative of the asocial bully standing in for individualism. This book should be a must read for anyone really interested in moral philosophy. Tibor R. Machan