Psychotherapy and the Moral Realism of Charles Taylor

Authors

Brent D. Slife
Eric A. Ghelfi
Nathan M. Slife, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Book Section

Publication Date

1-1-2019

Publication Title

Hermeneutic Moral Realism in Psychology: Theory and Practice

Publisher

Routledge

First page number:

68

Last page number:

83

Abstract

If Taylor is right, therapeutic ignorance of the moral ecology of ordinary therapeutic practice is a pivotal ignorance, especially since he believes our core identities and critical approaches to change hinge on them. Taylor’s practice emphasis means that we need to unlearn some of our Western habits of understanding, specifically the way we tend to abstract morality from practice, such as formalism and deontology. Unlike relativism, Taylor believes that values and moral frameworks can distinguish worth and merit. Articulation is a self-interpretation of sorts, because it foregrounds many of the strongly held values and moral frameworks that people live by and remain in the background of their awareness. A more important test of Taylor’s moral realism is a therapeutic situation in which the therapist believes the client’s own perceived values need to change in better alignment with the real and non-subjective values of the client’s practices.

Disciplines

Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Language

English

Repository Citation

Slife, B. D., Ghelfi, E. A., Slife, N. M. (2019). Psychotherapy and the Moral Realism of Charles Taylor. Hermeneutic Moral Realism in Psychology: Theory and Practice 68-83. Routledge.