In this accessible yet throught-provoking work, Lisa Tessman takes us through gripping examples of the impossible demands of morality ¿ some epic, and others quotidian ¿ whose central predicament is: How do we make decisions when morality demands we do something that we cannot?

Lisa Tessman is Professor of Philosophy at Binghamton University. She teaches and does research in ethics, moral psychology, feminist philosophy, and related areas. Her work focuses on understanding how real human beings construct morality and experience moral demands, especially under difficult conditions. She is the author of Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles (OUP, 2005), and Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality (OUP, 2015).

• Introduction


• Chapter 1: Are There Moral Dilemmas?


• Chapter 2. Negotiable and Non-Negotiable Moral Requirements


• Chapter 3. How Do We Make Moral Judgments?


• Chapter 4. The Experience of Requirement


• Chapter 5. Love and the Unthinkable


• Chapter 6. Sacred Values


• Chapter 7. Constructing Morality


• Conclusion