Morality of the Past from the Present Perspective: Picture of Morality in Slovakia in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
Editor: Vasil Gluchman
Date Of Publication: May 2007
Isbn13: 9781847181718
Isbn: 1-84718-171-6
The monograph is divided into four parts. The work starts with Preface in which Vasil Gluchman presents socio-political, socio-cultural and ideological context of the first half of the twentieth century and the situation in Slovakia (and Central Europe) in this historical period, placing this monograph and the works of individual contributors into the context of the given era. The first part deals with philosophical and ethical issues arising from the examination of morality at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. This part creates the methodological starting point for the examinations presented in the next three parts of the monograph. The second part focuses on the development of philosophical and ethical reflection of morality in Slovakia in the given era. The third part examines socio-political and professional-ethical aspects of the development and functioning of morality in Slovakia in the first half of the 20th century. Reflections of morality in Slovakia in the Slovak literature of the first half of the 20th century are the object of interest in the fourth part of the monograph.

Vasil Gluchman is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at the Institute of Philosophy and Ethics, Faculty of Arts, Prešov University in Prešov (Slovakia). He is the author of Human Being and Morality in Ethics of Social Consequences (2003), Slovak Lutheran Social Ethics (1997), Etika sociálnych dôsledkov v kontexte jej kritiky [Ethics of Social Consequences in Context of its Critique] (1999), Človek a morálka [Man and Morality] (1997), Etika sociálnych dôsledkov a jej kontexty [Ethics of Social Consequences and its Contexts] (1996), Etika konzekvencializmu [Consequentialist Ethics] (1995).

This is a book that needed to be written and that needs to be read because it engages reflection on morality learned by a people who endured and survived magyarization – commonly referred to in our own time as ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide, and/or forced ethnic assimilation. It may even give pause for reflection to readers who see themselves as personally untouched by this misery – but are active promoters of nothing but the virtues of pluralism – to wonder whether pluralism is a contemporary way of eliminating unwanted ethnic groups by homogenization of all to pluralism.

This book is not a collection of lessons from history but a chorus of voices that offer an honest, serious, yet refreshing and insightful understanding ourselves, society and culture. There are uncommon paradigms to consider in these articles that can enhance anyone’s sense of living in reality. Vasil Gluchman’s article on the important personality of “Martin Razus, A Philosopher and Ethicist,” is a case in point. Razus explains that the most important lesson to learn is “to accept blows” to build oneself as being above all images of the world that would render one unhappy and harmed. Pain belongs to life as a shadow belongs to an object in the sun. There are powers of “ruination” in life but the motto of a person must become: “Do not give in to life [ruination].” Rather, learn to orient your life on the development of creativity and productive powers that lie within and offer you possibility – of self-cultivation and self-development.

This collection covers a wide academic range of subject material, from meta-ethical and theological reflections, to problems of alcoholism, family, and work to moral aspects in literature that put morality at center stage in the human experience, all of which are united by the furnace that was the Slovak experience of ethnic cleansing.

Howard M. Ducharme, D.Phil.

Professor & Chair, Philosophy Department

University of Akron

USA

Price Uk Gbp: 34.99
Price Us Usd: 52.99

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