Charles Peirce on Ethics, Esthetics and the Normative Sciences

James Jakób Liszka is Senior Scholar at the Institute for Ethics in Public Life and Professor of Philosophy at The State University of New York, College at Plattsburgh. He is also Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary and Area Studies. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and was Visiting Professor at Beijing Language and Culture University and the China Youth University for Political Sciences in Beijing. He was Humanities Fellow at the University of Toronto, Scarborough College. He is the author of Pragmatist Ethics: A Problem-Based Approach to What Matters (2021), Moral Competence (2002), A General Introduction to the Semeiotic of Charles S. Peirce (1996), and The Semiotic of Myth: A Critical Study of the Symbol (1989). He has also published several articles on ethical theory, environmental ethics, pragmatism and narrative theory.

"James Liszka’s book is, to date and without question, one of the best resources on its titular focus. It thoroughly considers the historical roots of Peirce’s thought on values and normativity, and it addresses some hard questions about it, including about the nature of the growth of concrete reasonableness, which Peirce considers to be our ethical summum bonum. It is clear and focused, and it contributes much to the discussion in this area of Peirce scholarship, interest in which has increased over the past decade." – Aaron Wilson, South Texas College, USA

• IntroductionChapter 1: Influences on Peirce’s Ethical ThoughtChapter 2: Morality, Ethics and Peirce’s Conservative SentimentalismChapter 3: The Normative Science of EthicsChapter 4: A Grammar of EthicsChapter 5: Ethical ReasoningChapter 6: Moral Truth and Moral Realism Chapter 7: Ethical CommunityChapter 8: EstheticsChapter 9: EndsConclusion: The Lessons of the Normative SciencesAppendix 1: Peirce’s Classification of Ends