This thesis explores the relation between the normative structures brought to bear on the evaluation of life and the way in which the coming-into-being of living organisms is fundamentally understood. It provides a new analysis and critique of the standard concept of ‘flourishing’ in neo-Aristotelian meta-ethics, by uncovering the underlying interpretation of organismic becoming on which it relies, and showing how the turn to a ‘constructivist’ conception of development in contemporary biological theory both disrupts this underlying metaphysics, and provides resources for re-thinking flourishing on a fundamentally different basis. The central claim is that we should turn from a view in which life is given a form to fulfil, and becoming is the process of its fulfilment, to one in which living is the process of creating a way in the world, as life goes along.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:754283 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Griffiths, Jack |
| Contributors | Durie, Robin ; Dupre, John |
| Publisher | University of Exeter |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/34080 |
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