Search

Philosophical aspects of law and jurisprudence are investigated from various points of view. This collection represents the analytic approach to legal philosophy. However, this approach is not extreme in the sense that it is limited exclusively to linguistic matters. The concept of norm as a directive of conduct is the central category analyzed in particular essays. The structure of directives as well as their semantic and pragmatic roles are studied. Pragmatic functions of directives are linked with their functioning as speech acts. Moreover, existence and validity of norms are analyzed. The author also touches on general methodological problems of legal theory and philosophy, particularly their relations to social sciences. The collection covers material interesting for philosophers, lawyers and social scientists.

Dimensions of Moral Agency addresses and exemplifies the multi-dimensionality of modern moral philosophy. The book is a collection of papers originally presented at the Northwest Philosophy Conference in October 2013. The papers encompass a wide variety of topics within moral philosophy, including metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics, and broadly fall within the areas of the nature of moral agency and moral agency as it is played out in particular aspects of people's lived experiences. The papers include assessments of the contributions of historical figures, such as Aristotle, Epictetus, Confucius, Berkeley, and Descartes, as well as analyses of agency as it relates to individual and social moral issues like mental illness, the ethics of debt, prostitution, eco-consumerism, oppression, and species egalitarianism, among others. Also covered are concerns related to the nature of moral reasoning at the individual and social level, the relevance of love and emotion to moral agency, and moral responsibility and efficacy. Interwoven with these topics and issues are concerns related to what sorts of things are, or could be, moral agents and what constitutes a moral good; the possibility of the existence of moral knowledge or moral facts or moral truth; and what constitutes moral motivation and how that is, or is not, related to questions of moral justification.

This book studies how the relationship between philosophy, morality, politics, and science was conceived in the Vienna Circle and how this group of philosophers tried to position science as an antidote to totalitarianism and irrationalism. This leads to investigation of the still understudied views of the Vienna Circle on moral philosophy, meta-ethics, and the relationship between philosophy of science and politics. Including papers from an international group of scholars, The Socio-ethical Dimension of Knowledge: The Mission of Logical Empiricism addresses these topics and makes them available to scholars in the field of history of philosophy of science.

Featuring contributions from Matthew Kieran, Aaron Ridley, Roger Scruton and Mary Mothersill to name but a few, this collection of groundbreaking new papers on aesthetics and ethics, highlights the link between the two subjects. These leading figures tackle the important questions that arise when one thinks about the moral dimensions of art and the aesthetic dimension of moral life.The volume is a significant contribution to philosophical literature, opening up unexplored questions and shedding new light on more traditional debates in aesthetics. The topics explored include: the relation of aesthetic to ethical judgment the relation of artistic experience to moral consciousness the moral status of fiction the concepts of sentimentality and decadence the moral dimension of critical practice, pictorial art and music the moral significance of tragedy the connections between artistic and moral issues elaborated in the writings of central figures in modern philosophy, such as Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The contributors share the view that progress in aesthetics requires detailed study of the practice of criticism. This volume will appeal to both the philosophical community and to researchers in areas such as literary theory, musicology and the theory of art.

Ethics Done Right examines how practical reasoning can be put into the service of ethical and moral theory. Elijah Millgram shows that the key to thinking about ethics is to understand generally how to make decisions. The papers in this volume support a methodological approach and trace the connections between two kinds of theory in utilitarianism, in Kantian ethics, in virtue ethics, in Hume's moral philosophy, and in moral particularism. Unlike other studies of ethics, Ethics Done Right does not advocate a particular moral theory. Rather, it offers a tool that enables one to decide for oneself.

A collection of essays by the celebrated philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This collection includes papers on human nature and practical philosophy, together with the classic'Modern Moral Philosophy'

Norms, Values, and Society is the second Yearbook of the Vienna Circle Institute, which was founded in October 1991. The main part of the book contains original contributions to an international symposium the Institute held in October 1993 on ethics and social philosophy. The papers deal among others with questions of justice, equality, just social institutions, human rights, the connections between rationality and morality and the methodological problems of applied ethics. The Documentation section contains previously unpublished papers by Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Charles W. Morris and Edgar Zilsel, and the review section presents new publications on the Vienna Circle. The Vienna Circle Institute is devoted to the critical advancement of science and philosophy in the broad tradition of the Vienna Circle, as well as to the focusing of cross-disciplinary interest on the history and philosophy of science in a social context. The Institute's Yearbooks will, for the most part, document its activities and provide a forum for the discussion of exact philosophy, logical and empirical investigations, and analysis of language.

This book improves the alignment of economics with the idea of justice, the first virtue of any social institution, according to Rawls. To this aim, it provides the analytical framework necessary to ensure a just economy. While today's notion of economics favours the economics of extortion, this book proposes a model that transcends Lionel Robbins'canonical relationship between ends and means, as it proposes a broader notion of rationality incorporating the range of human attributes. In contrast to Robbins'economic rationality, economic choices must be based on adequate and good reasons, as Rescher claims, because both the means and the ends require rational deliberation. As a result, the book challenges Robbins'hope of turning general concepts like scarcity, costs, etc. into universal economic principles guiding human behavior in a vacuum. It disputes the idea that, through the application of the abstract formulation of economic statements unconnected to reality, economics can be rationalized in a morally neutral space, based on empty rationality. By contrasting the three rival versions of economics —formalism (axiomatic), empiricism (technocratic-consequential), and institutionalism (axio-ideological)— the book shows that it is not possible to switch between them as they refer to segmented mental universes of abstraction.

In Very Practical Ethics David Benatar discusses some of the moral problems that ordinary people face in their everyday lives. These are not moral problems that arise only in extraordinary circumstances, nor those which are confronted only by select people in their professional or public roles; rather, they are problems that most people face on a daily basis. They are “very practical” issues, both because of their ubiquity, and because individuals are usually able to act on their decisions. Among these very practical questions: When is sex morally permissible? What duties does an individual have regarding the environment? When may we engage in practices such as smoking that might cause discomfort or increase the risk of harm to others? How extensive are our duties to assist the world's poor and others in dire need of help? Is it morally permissible to consume animals and their products? When is language prejudicial? Is it wrong to swear? How should we address and refer to others? When, if ever, is controversial humour morally permissible? Is it always wrong to bullshit, or to fail to call out the bullshit of others? When should we forgive--or not forgive? Written accessibly and covering topics not often discussed by moral philosophers, Very Practical Ethics will be of interest to students and other readers who care about how we might resolve the kinds of ethical issues we all face every day.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive survey of major topics in the philosophy of punishment from many of the field's leading scholars. Key featuresPresents a history of punishment theory from ancient times to the present.Evaluates the main proposed justifications of punishment, including retributivism, general and specific deterrence theories, mixed theories, expressivism, societal-defense theory, fair play theory, rights forfeiture theory, and the public health-quarantine model.Discusses sentencing, proportionality, policing, prosecution, and the role punishment plays in the context of the state.Examines advances in neuroscience and debates about whether free will skepticism undermines the justifiability of punishment.Considers forgiveness, restorative justice, and calls to abolish punishment.Addresses pressing social issues such as mass incarceration, juvenile justice, punitive torture, the death penalty, and “cruel and unusual” punishment. · With its unmatched breadth and depth, this book is essential reading for scholars who want to keep abreast of the field and for advanced students wishing to explore the frontiers of the subject.

In Living toward Virtue, Paul Woodruff shows how we can set about living ethically through self-questioning, which enables us to avoid moral injury by getting clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it. Self-questioning also helps us recognize the limits of our knowledge and so to avoid the danger of self-righteousness. Using real-life examples, Woodruff shows how we can nurture our souls, enjoy a virtuous happiness, and avoid moral injury as much as possible. This is in the spirit of Socrates, who urged everyone to commit to a lifelong activity of self-examination. By contrast, modern philosophers who follow Aristotle in ethics have mostly taught that living well depends on having virtues that are robust traits of character. Traits are not reliable in all situations, however, and they do not help us make hard decisions. Having a trait is no substitute for the activity we need to practice in order to live toward virtue. Written for anyone interested in answers to ancient questions about how to live ethically, as well as those engaged with current debates, Living Toward Virtue represents the culmination of decades of scholarship by one of its most distinguished figures.

Positing that education is a movement from one way of being to another, more desirable one, An Intense Calling argues that ethics should be the prime focus for the field of education. The book locates ethics, education, and justice in human subjectivity and describes education as a necessary practice for ethical reflexivity, change, and becoming (ethically) different. It also situates ethics as something that exceeds subjectivity, thereby engaging ethics as a material phenomenon through topics such as aesthetics and solidarity with non-humans. Jesse Bazzul explores various concepts in the book including power, biopolitics, the commons, subjectivity, and materiality, and draws from over twenty years of experience teaching in different countries including Canada, Ireland, the United States, China, and Ukraine. Taking a wide-ranging philosophical approach, the book entangles ethics, urgent political issues, and pressing educational contexts of the twenty-first century. In doing so, An Intense Calling maintains that ethics is the core of education because education involves finding better ways of living and being in the world.

This volume contains for the first time in English, Jan Patočka's seminal essay “The Phenomenology of Afterlife”, as well as contributions surrounding and analyzing this text. In his essay, Patočka reflects on our relation to the dead and on how the departure of a loved one affects our continued existence. The premise of Patočka's investigation is that our existence always takes place by and through an originary and reciprocal “being for others”.The contributors in the volume extend the field of inquiry into the wider phenomenological and post-phenomenological discussion of death by being cognizant of how works of literature can broaden our understanding of the care of death, grief, forgiveness and non-reciprocal love. Also included are reflections on issues of philosophical anthropology, community, collective memory, and the ecstatic nature of life – issues that can all be related back to Patočka's initial reflections, but which nonetheless radiate intoa myriad of directions. This volume appeals to students and researchers in the field.

This handbook articulates how sociology can re-engage its roots as the scientific study of human moral systems, actions, and interpretation. This second volume builds on the successful original volume published in 2010, which contributed to the initiation of a new section of the American Sociological Association (ASA), thus growing the field. This volume takes sociology back to its roots over a century ago, when morality was a central topic of work and governance. It engages scholars from across subfields in sociology, representing each section of the ASA, who each contribute a chapter on how their subfield connects to research on morality. This reference work appeals to broader readership than was envisaged for the first volume, as the relationship between sociology as a discipline and its origins in questions of morality is further renewed. The volume editors focus on three areas: the current state of the sociology of morality across a range of sociologicalsubfields; taking a new look at some of the issues discussed in the first handbook, which are now relevant in sometimes completely new contexts; and reflecting on where the sociology of morality should go next. This is a must-read reference for students and scholars interested in topics of morality, ethics, altruism, religion, and spirituality from across the social science.

What do we owe future people? Intergenerational ethics is of great philosophical and practical importance, given human beings'ability to affect not only the quality of life of future people, but also how many of them there will be (if any at all). This book develops a distinctly contractualist answer to this question--we need to justify our actions to them on grounds they could not reasonably reject. The book develops principles of intergenerational ethics in four main areas. How good a life are we required to leave future people? When is it permissible for an individual to procreate? Should we try to ensure as many people as possible live in the future or allow humans to become extinct? How does the fact that we do not always know how our actions will affect future people change what we owe them? The book answers these questions by using the contractualist method to develop general moral principles in these areas, and then applying those principles to real-world, concrete situations that individuals and states face every day.

Philosophiehistorische Überblicksdarstellungen vermitteln häufig den Eindruck, im Wiener Kreis herrsche ein Verständnis von Philosophie vor, das auf eine an der modernen Logik und den Naturwissenschaften orientierte ahistorische Spielart der Erkenntnistheorie und Wissenschaftstheorie beschränkt ist. Die vorliegende Sammlung von Fachbeiträgen trägt in Fortsetzung neuerer Forschungstendenzen zu einer Korrektur dieses Eindrucks bei, indem sie verdeutlicht, wie weit das philosophische Spektrum des Wiener Kreises ist. Die Felder, die sie in den Blick nimmt, reichen von der Kulturphilosophie und Metaphysik, über die Philosophiegeschichte und Praktische Philosophie bis hin zur Ästhetik.

This book examines the centrality of ideas such as satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence), humility, and respect for understanding moral life in the complex milieu of human existence. It provides a comprehensive view of how Gandhian ideas have both a temporal and spatial universality significantly different from Western modern philosophy's universality claims. The chapters represent different styles of philosophy but with a common purpose, offering insights into how the global debates on religion, morality, and politics are assessed from Gandhi's point of view. Written in language accessible to general readers with an interest in Gandhian thinking, the book will appeal to academics and philosophers.

This book addresses the topic of'being bound'from a philosophical and a sociological perspective. It examines several ways in which we are bound. We are bound to acknowledge the truth and to follow laws; we are bound to others and to the world. Who we are is partly defined by those bonds, regardless of whether we live up to them – or even of whether we acknowledge them. Puzzling questions arise from the fact that we are bound, such as: How are those bonds binding? Wherein lies their normative character? A venerable philosophical tradition, particularly since Kant, has provided an account of normativity that crucially appeals to such notions as “self-legislation.” But can our normative bonds be properly understood in these essentially first-personal terms? Many argue that our social condition resists any account of those bonds that fails to acknowledge the perspectives of the second and the third person. The first part of the book explores these themes from a historical perspective in the tradition of transcendental philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger); it examines the phenomenon of “being bound”, i.e., why and how we are bound. The second part of the book offers a sociological analysis of social bonds that is both historical and systematic. Based on sociological approaches to “solidarity” and “reflexivity”, it explores the way in which the phenomenon of “being bound” manifests through the concept of a “social relation”.

This open access book helps readers combine history, politics, and ethics to address the most pressing problem facing the world today: environmental survival. In A Climate of Justice, Marvin Brown connects the environmental crisis to basic questions of economic, social, and racial justice. Brown shows how our current social climate maintains systemic injustices, and he uncovers resources for change through a civic ethics of repair and reciprocity. A must-read for researchers and educators in the area of environmental ethics and those teaching courses in the fields of public policy and environmental sustainability. With the support of more than 30 libraries, the LYRASIS United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Fund has enabled this publication related to SDG13 (Climate Action) to be available fully open access.

Jeder Mensch lügt. Würden wir dies leugnen, würden wir uns selbst belügen. Gefährlich wird dies, wenn die Lüge sich als Normalität in unser Leben einschleicht und zum Automatismus wird. Wenn sie sich so überzeugend darstellt, dass wir nicht mehr in der Lage sind, zu erkennen, was Wahrheit und Lüge ist. Dann braucht es Wahrhaftigkeit! Wahrhaftigkeit stört den Automatismus der Lüge und bricht ihn auf. In diesem Buch beschreiben 26 Autorinnen und Autoren aus den Bereichen der Politik, der kommunalen und öffentlichen Arbeit, der Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften, der Religion, der Wirtschaft und der Begleitung von Menschen ihre Perspektive auf die Wahrhaftigkeit aus ihren jeweiligen Kontexten heraus. Die Auseinandersetzungen in den verschiedenen Bereichen verweisen auf die vielfältigen Chancen und Herausforderungen für das Mensch-Sein und die Gesellschaft, die die Wahrhaftigkeit mit sich bringt.

This book offers a provocative analysis of the neuroscience of morality. Written by three leading scholars of science, medicine, and bioethics, it critiques contemporary neuroscientific claims about individual morality and notions of good and evil. Winner of a 2021 prize from the Expanded Reason Institute, it connects moral philosophy to neoliberal economics and successfully challenges the idea that we can locate morality in the brain. Instead of discovering the source of morality in the brain as they claim to do, the popularizers of contemporary neuroscience are shown to participate in an understanding of human behavior that serves the vested interests of contemporary political economy. Providing evidence that the history of claims about morality and brain function reach back 400 years, the authors locate its genesis in the beginnings of modern philosophy, science, and economics. They further map this trajectory through the economic and moral theories of Francis Bacon, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and the Chicago School of Economics to uncover a pervasive colonial anthropology at play in the neuroscience of morality today.The book concludes with a call for a humbler and more constrained neuroscience, informed by a more robust human anthropology that embraces the nobility, beauty, frailties, and flaws in being human.

This book is about permissive consent--the moral tool we use to give another person permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden. For instance, consent to enter my home gives you permission to do what would otherwise be trespass. This transformation is the very thing that philosophers identify as consent--which is why we call it a normative power. It is something individuals can do, by choice, to change the moral or legal world. But what human acts or attitudes render consent? When do coercive threats, offers, or lies undermine the transformative power of consent? What intentions or conventions are necessary to render consent meaningful? This book develops a novel theory that explains the moral features of consent in some of the most central domains of human life--but that also serves as a study in how to theorize normative power. It argues that consent is a moral mechanism with exactly the set of features that, when triggered, prevents another person's behavior from constituting a certain kind of wrongdoing. What kind of wrongdoing? It depends on what sort of permission is being granted. Sometimes consent permits others to enter, occupy, or act within some bounded domain wherein the consent-giver holds moral authority. In these cases, consent operates to prevent what the book calls: Invasive Wrongdoing. By identifying the moral features that underlie this special wrongdoing, we can learn what it takes to render consent.

New philosophical essays on love by a diverse group of international scholars. Topics include contributions to the ongoing debate on whether love is arational or if there are reasons for love, and if so what kind; the kinds of love there may be (between humans and artificial intelligences, between non-human animals and humans); whether love can explain the difference between nationalism and patriotism; whether love is an necessary component of truly seeing others and the world; whether love, like free will, is “fragile,” and may not survive in a deterministic world; and whether or not love is actually a good thing or may instead be a force opposed to morality. Key philosophers discussed include Immanuel Kant, Iris Murdoch, Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, J. David Velleman, Niko Kolodny, Thomas Hurka, Bennett Helm, Alfred Mele and Derk Pereboom. Essays also touch on the treatment of love in literature and popular culture, from Graham Greene's The End of theAffair to Spike Jonze's movie her.

This book covers a varied spectrum of ethical topics, ranging from the fundamental considerations regarding ethical values, to the rationale of obligation, and the ethical management of societal and personal affairs. Nicholas Rescher shows how fundamental general principles underpin the pragmatic stance we can appropriately take on questions of specific ethical detail. His work on these issues is pervaded by a certain pragmatic point of view. As the popular dictum has it, we humans come this way but once, with just a single lifetime available, to each one of us. Rescher argues that it is a matter of rational self-interest and ethical obligation to use this opportunity for doing something towards making the world a better home for ourselves and our posterity.

A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic TitleThe Moral Psychology of Hate provides the first systematic introduction to the moral psychology of hate compiling specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars with a wide range of disciplinary orientations. In light of the recent revival of interest in emotions in academic philosophy, and the current social and political interest in hate, this volume provides arguments for and against the value of hate through a combination of empirical and philosophical methods. The authors examine hate not merely as a destructive feeling but as an emotion of great moral significance that illuminates how we understand each other and ourselves. The book will be of major interest to anyone concerned with the dynamics and the moral and political implications of this most powerful of human emotions.

This collection explores the arguments related to veg(etari)anism as they play out in the public sphere and across media, historical eras, and geographical areas. As vegan and vegetarian practices have gradually become part of mainstream culture, stemming from multiple shifts in the socio-political, cultural, and economic landscape, discursive attempts to both legitimize and delegitimize them have amplified. With 12 original chapters, this collection analyses a diverse array of these legitimating strategies, addressing the practice of veg(etari)anism through analytical methods used in rhetorical criticism and adjacent fields. Part I focuses on specific geo-cultural contexts, from early 20th century Italy, Serbia and Israel, to Islam and foundational Yoga Sutras. In Part II, the authors explore embodied experiences and legitimation strategies, in particular the political identities and ontological consequences coming from consumption of, or abstention from,meat. Part III looks at the motives, purposes and implication of veg(etari)anism as a transformative practice, from ego to eco, that should revolutionise our value hierarchies, and by extension, our futures. Offering a unique focus on the arguments at the core of the veg(etari)an debate, this collection provides an invaluable resource to scholars across a multitude of disciplines.

Connecting several strands of Aristotle's thought, Zoli Filotas sheds light on one of the axioms of Aristotle's ethics and political philosophy – that every community has a ruler – and demonstrates its relevance to his ideas on personal relationships. Aristotle and the Ethics of Difference, Friendship, and Equality reveals a pluralistic theory of rule in Aristotle's thought, tracing it through his corpus and situating it in a discussion among such figures as Gorgias, Xenophon, and Plato. Considering the similarities and differences among various forms of rule, Filotas shows that for Aristotle even virtuous friends must exercise a version of rule akin to that of slaveholders. He also explores why Aristotle distinguishes the hierarchical rule over women from both the mastery of slaves and the political rule exercised by free and equal citizens. In doing so, he argues that natural and social differences among human beings play a complex, and troubling, role in Aristotle's reasoning. Illuminating and thought-provoking, this book reveals Aristotle's ambivalence about political relations and the equal treatment they involve and offers an engaging inquiry into how he understood the common structures of human relationships.

Die philosophische Forschung zu Fragen der Armut hat zuletzt auch im deutschsprachigen Raum zugenommen. Im Fokus stehen dabei zumeist Fragen der Ethik und politischen Philosophie, etwa jene danach, worin das moralische Übel der Armut besteht oder nach der individuellen, kollektiven und institutionellen Verantwortung gegenüber Menschen in (extremer) Armut. Die Aktualität der Armutsfrage ist dabei unbestritten sowohl im Hinblick auf ihr globales Ausmaß und die teils verheerenden Folgen für die betroffenen Personen als auch im Hinblick auf das Politikum Armut in entwickelten Wohlfahrtsstaaten.Das Ziel des Handbuchs ist es, den aktuellen Stand der philosophischen Forschung umfassend abzubilden. Dabei werden nicht nur die klassischen Fragestellungen der politischen Philosophie und Ethik (Chancengleichheit, Gerechtigkeit, Menschenrechte, Pflichten, Verantwortung etc.) behandelt, sondern auch jene aufgegriffen, die bislang weniger intensiv diskutiert wurden. Das betrifft etwa ethische Fragen der Armutsforschung (z.B. Altruismus, Würde, und Anerkennung) oder die Verhandlung der Armut in den verschiedenen historischen Epochen und Strömungen.

Addressing the post-enlightenment problems of meaning and freedom, Kyle Michael James Shuttleworth traces the historical development of the ethics of authenticity in a lucid and vigorous study. The emergence of authenticity as an ethical ideal is probed in relation to the rise of social freedom and individualism which opens up conversations and disagreements with the German Idealists, and later, Habermas, Foucault, and MacIntyre. Taking heed of these intellectual predecessors and proponents of ethical authenticity leads to an original conception of a socio-existential account of ethical authenticity, made possible by the work of both Taylor and Sartre. Moving beyond virtue ethics, discourse ethics and Foucauldian notions of self-care, The History and Ethics of Authenticity constructs a practical ethics of authenticity that is both embedded in and able to transcend the current moment. Making use of contemporary reference points, including the rise of social media, capitalist branding, and competing appeals to identity, authenticity becomes an achievable ethical ideal.

This volume is a reappraisal of the work of Peter Guy Winch (1926 -1997), one of the most important philosophers of the 20th Century. Winch faded into relative obscurity compared to his contemporaries due to a mistaken belief that there are no systematic connections between the different aspects of his work. This volume corrects that presupposition and reintroduces Winch's work to a new generation of scholars. By showing how ethical, political and social issues are interrelated in Winch's work, and by making clear the connections between these issues and themes in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, the volume demonstrates both the breadth and the unity of Winch's approach. It discusses topics such as ethics, political philosophy, social science, the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language. Despite this apparent variety of topics, the contributors to the volume share Winch's conviction that the different areas of philosophy are interdependent. As a result, the volume as a whole shows unity in diversity and provides an example of a manner of philosophising in which different approaches and sub-disciplines are placed in dialogue with each other. Peter Guy Winch is most famous for his early work on the philosophy of the social sciences. His On the Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy (ISS) generated controversy within both philosophical and social scientific circles. In that work and subsequent publications Winch argued against the presupposition that social relations could be understood using the conceptual tools of the natural sciences. Winch would later describe ISS as a'young man's book'and would come to regret the reputation it garnered him - a mixture of roughly equal degrees fame and infamy. Alongside his work on the philosophy of social sciences, Winch was an interpreter and exegete of Wittgenstein. He also published a ground-breaking study ofthe philosophy of Simone Weil, entitled Simone Weil: The Just Balance. Winch also published numerous essays on issues in ethics, political philosophy and the philosophy of religion, and at his death was working on a book manuscript on the problem of political authority.

Der Band versammelt Beiträge, die sich mit ethischen, anthropologischen und wissenschaftstheoretischen Aspekten informationstechnologischer Anwendungen, insbesondere Big Data, befassen. In unterschiedlichen disziplinären Perspektiven werden die Auswirkungen dieser Technologien auf Individuum, Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft in den Blick genommen.

This compelling and distinctive volume advances Aristotelianism by bringing its traditional virtue ethics to bear upon characteristically modern issues, such as the politics of economic power and egalitarian dispute.This volume bridges the gap between Aristotle's philosophy and the multitude of contemporary Aristotelian theories that have been formulated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Part I draws on Aristotle's texts and Thomas Aquinas'Aristotelianism to examine the Aristotelian tradition of virtues, with a chapter by Alasdair MacIntyre contextualising the different readings of Aristotle's philosophy. Part II offers a critical engagement with MacIntyrean Aristotelianism, while Part III demonstrates the ongoing influence of Aristotelianism in contemporary theoretical debates on governance and politics.Extensive in its historical scope, this is a valuable collection relating the tradition of virtue to modernity, which will be of interest to all working in virtue ethics and contemporary Aristotelian politics.

This book argues that justice often governs apologies. Drawing on examples from literature, politics, and current events, Cohen presents a theory of apology as corrective offers.Many leading accounts of apology say much about what apologies do and why they are important. They stop short of exploring whether and how justice governs apologies. Cohen argues that corrective justice may require apologies as offers of reparation. Individuals, corporations, and states may then have rights or duties regarding apology. Exercising rights to apology or fulfilling duties to provide them are ways of holding one another mutually accountable. By casting rights and duties of apology as justifiable to free and equal persons, the book advances conversations about how liberalism may respond to historic injustice.Apologies and Moral Repair will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in ethics, political philosophy, and social philosophy.

The essays in this volume on the subject of equality are the work of scholars at Bard College and West Point. Their research falls within the areas of history, religion, legal theory, social science, ethics and philosophy. The regions covered include the Middle and Far East, Europe, and America; the time periods studied are both contemporary and historical. Each essay is a well-detailed exploration which assumes the reader has no prior acquaintance with the topic.Together, the studies reveal both conflicting standards of equality as well as patterns of pernicious inequality. In an ideal world, equality and inequality among humans would vary in acceptable proportion, increase of the one ensuring decrease of the other. Unfortunately, as the studies illustrate, any such expectation of progress in the real world is almost routinely thwarted. Despite the wide variety of topics, a common thread binds these essays. Human nature seems to harbor a moral deficiency lying deeper than any written laws and those traditional customs which promote inequality and breed injustice. The fault is prominent in those who champion unjust laws or who willingly enforce discrimination but it is no less active in the silent many who condone the practice. The essays reveal the same persistent and unappealing trait which social groups from the remote past to the present manifest in various ways: blind determination to perpetuate whatever advantages one group believes it enjoys over another, convinced that its own members are more equal than theirs. Being made unequal, the others too easily become targets who are considered less worthy, sometimes even less human.

This book offers a unique method for teaching ethics and social/political philosophy by combining primary texts and resource material along with three philosophical novels so that students can apply the abstract principles to real-life situations. A sample syllabus and sample assignments are provided. This second edition contains an additional teacher's manual, guiding instructors in how to effectively put together a course in ethics using fiction. Students often turn-off when confronted with abstract ethical principles, alone. This book allows interaction with philosophical novels that provide real-life situations that mirrors applying normative principles to lived experience. Students will be drawn into this realism and their engagement with the material will be significantly enhanced. This is an innovative textbook for teachers and students of general philosophy, ethics, business ethics, social and political philosophy, as well as students of literature and philosophy.

W. David Solomon sits at the very center of the revival of virtue ethics. Solomon's work extended what began with the publication of G. E. M. Anscombe's'Modern Moral Philosophy'(1958) by solidifying virtue ethics as a viable approach within contemporary moral philosophy. Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture comprises twelve chapters: eleven that employ Solomon's work and legacy, followed by a twelfth concluding chapter by Solomon himself. Each chapter deepens and develops virtue ethics as a rich intellectual tradition rooted in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas.Editor Raymond Hain divides the volume into three sections. The first addresses the historical contexts of happiness, justice, and mercy in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. The second turns to recent themes in normative ethics, focusing on topics such as morality, virtue, and egoism. The third discusses broader ethical issues with significant cultural implications, such as human dignity, physician-assisted suicide, and secularization. Beyond the Self uncovers the shortcomings of contemporary moral philosophy and the depth and capacity of the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions, reminding the reader that classical virtue ethics remains the most promising framework for understanding the moral life.Contributors include: Michael Beaty, Kevin L. Flannery, Raymond Hain, John Haldane, Thomas Hibbs, Irfan Khawaja, Alasdair MacIntyre, John O'Callaghan, Bryan C. Pilkington, W. David Solomon, Christopher Toner, and Candace Vogler.

This book presents a collection of essays exploring the legal, economic, socio-environmental, and ethical dimensions of human-animal interaction in Brazil. As one of the primary global producers and exporters of beef, with a level of biodiversity in its rain-forests found nowhere else under threat, the importance of Brazil for animal life is unquestionable. Shedding light on the profound transformations in the consumption and production of animal-sourced foods that have taken place over the last five decades, the authors examine the consequences of this phenomenon for the lives of animals, the health of the population, and the environment. The book also offers an analysis of the animal welfare and animal protection legislation in Brazil, before presenting a number of notable cases involving animal advocacy and activism in recent years. An important and timely collection, this book concludes with an exploration of the historical, socio-cultural and economic aspects that influence the Brazilian ethos regarding the morality of the treatment of animals.

The rise of the phenomenon of virtue ethics in recent years has increased at a rapid pace. Such an explosion carries with it a number of great possibilities, as well as risks. This volume has been written to contribute a multi-faceted perspective to the current conversation about virtue. Among many other thought-provoking questions, the collection addresses the following: What are the virtues, and how are they enumerated? What are the internal problems among ethicists, and what are the objections and replies to contemporary virtue ethics? Additionally, the practical implications following from the answers to these questions are discussed in new and fascinating research. Fundamental concepts such as teleology and eudaimonism are addressed from both a historical and dialectical approach. This tome will contribute not only to providing further clarity to the current horizons in virtue ethics, but also to the practical conclusion following from the study: to challenge the reader towarda greater pursuit of the virtuous life.

In the light of growing political and religious fundamentalism, this open access book defends the idea of freedom as paramount for the attempt to find common ethical ground in the age of globality. The book sets out to examine as yet unexhausted ways to boost the resilience of the principle of liberalism. Critically reviewing the last 200 years of the philosophy of freedom, it revises the principle of liberty in order to revive it. It discusses many different aspects that fall under its three main topics: the metaphysics of freedom, quantitative freedom and qualitative freedom. Open societies worldwide have come under increasing pressure in the last decades. The belief that politics and markets fare best when guided by the principle of liberty presently faces multiple challenges such as terrorism, climate warming, inequality, populism, and financial crises. In the view of its critics, the idea of freedom no longer offers adequate guidance to meet these challenges andshould be partially corrected or even entirely replaced by countervailing values. Against the reduction of freedom to the merely quantitative question as to how much liberties individuals call their own, this book draws attention to the qualitative concerns which and whose opportunities society should foster. It argues that, correctly understood, the idea of liberty commits us to defend as well as advance the freedom of each and every world citizen.

You're probably never going to be a saint. Even so, let's face it: you could be a better person. We all could. But what does that mean for you? In a world full of suffering and deprivation, it's easy to despair—and it's also easy to judge ourselves for not doing more. Even if we gave away everything we own and devoted ourselves to good works, it wouldn't solve all the world's problems. It would make them better, though. So is that what we have to do? Is anything less a moral failure? Can we lead a fundamentally decent life without taking such drastic steps? Todd May has answers. He's not the sort of philosopher who tells us we have to be model citizens who display perfect ethics in every decision we make. He's realistic: he understands that living up to ideals is a constant struggle. In A Decent Life, May leads readers through the traditional philosophical bases of a number of arguments about what ethics asks of us, then he develops a more reasonable and achievable way of thinking about them, one that shows us how we can use philosophical insights to participate in the complicated world around us. He explores how we should approach the many relationships in our lives—with friends, family, animals, people in need—through the use of a more forgiving, if no less fundamentally serious, moral compass. With humor, insight, and a lively and accessible style, May opens a discussion about how we can, realistically, lead the good life that we aspire to. A philosophy of goodness that leaves it all but unattainable is ultimately self-defeating. Instead, Todd May stands at the forefront of a new wave of philosophy that sensibly reframes our morals and redefines what it means to live a decent life.

In Ethics: Past, Present and Future Perspectives, the authors open by making a characterization of ethics viewed as a domain of philosophy. They present traditional approaches to ethics and point out the importance of general and special ethics in contemporary philosophical discourse. A conclusion is drawn that a clear need arises to discuss the so-called “new ethics”, one which is removed from the schematic thinking on “good” and “evil.” The following chapter discusses Nagel's dualism and Murphy's monism in depth. Both of them limit their discussions to distributive justice, but they admit that their views can apply to a more general discussion of the relationship between politics and morality. The authors suggest that supervenience is the key to solve this problem, using it as a standard to evaluate arguments from both sides, and then arguing that a supervenience relationship between politics and morality would be the third and better position than both dualism and monism. This collection examines ethics committes in hospitals, clinics, and other medical and research medical institutions within the public and private sector. An ethics committee is a group of individuals formed to protect the interests of patients and address moral issues within the health sector in many countries, consisting of different healthcare professionals and non-medical members. The following chapter discusses the convergence of technologies and scientific disciplines: singly, each of them has a large potential to change society and mankind, but combined they represent a more powerful source for even bigger changes. The increasingly widespread use of digital recording in administrative, commercial and social networks is opening up new and unpredictable scenario which might also influence the definition of disease in a digital society. The authors propose that by developing appropriate algorithms, it would be possible to identify subsets of the population at higher risk of developing diseases, to ascertain whether distances between homes and drugstores or hospitals influence people's health profiles, to see whether the characteristics shared by Facebook friends influence their individual health profiles, and so on.

What lies at the foundation of our moral beliefs? If we dig down far enough do we find that our moral values have no ground at all to stand on, and so are apt to collapse upon serious philosophical investigation? This book seeks to answer these and related questions by positing an indubitable foundation for our moral beliefs – they arise from the phenomenon of ‘primary recognition', and are fundamentally shaped by ‘basic moral certainties'. Drawing on philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Knud Ejler Løgstrup, this book draws together insights from both Analytic and Continental philosophy to provide a convincing new picture of our moral foundations. And it does so in a way that eschews moral conservativism and opens the way for a rich understanding of the variety and particularity of our human moral systems, while also keeping a significant place for those moral beliefs that occur universally, across cultures.

This edited volume presents new and unconventional views of many traditional moral values, such as humanity, human dignity, moral right (of life), justice and responsibility. The originality of the contributions here is their analysis of these values and approaches from the point of view of non-utilitarian consequentialism and ethics of social consequences as one of its forms. The authors present new ways of solving many contemporary ethical and moral issues, including, for example, in bioethics, medical ethics, environmental ethics, teaching ethics, and cyber ethics, based on non-utilitarian consequentialism and ethics of social consequences. They also confront these approaches with other ethical theories and philosophical traditions, which serve as further incentives for the development of non-utilitarian consequentialism and ethics of social consequences in philosophical, applied and professional ethics.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.This timely book addresses the conflict between globalism and nationalism. It provides a liberal communitarian response to the rise of populism occurring in many democracies. The book highlights the role of communities next to that of the state and the market. It spells out the policy implications of liberal communitarianism for privacy, freedom of the press, and much else. In a persuasive argument that speaks to politics today from Europe to the United States to Australia, the author offers a compelling vision of hope. Above all, the book offers a framework for dealing with moral challenges people face as they seek happiness but also to live up to their responsibilities to others and the common good.At a time when even our most basic values are up for question in policy debates riddled with populist manipulation, Amitai Etzioni's bold book creates a new frame which introduces morals and values back into applied policy questions. These questions span the challenges of jobless growth to the unanswered questions posed by the role of artificial intelligence in a wide range of daily life tasks and decisions. While not all readers will agree with the communitarian solutions that he proposes, many will welcome an approach that is, at its core, inclusive and accepting of the increasingly global nature of all societies at the same time. It is a must read for all readers concerned about the future of Western liberal democracy.Carol Graham, Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution and College Park Professor/University of MarylandIn characteristically lively, engaging, and provocative style Etzioni tackles many of the great public policy dilemmas that afflict us today. Arguing that we are trapped into a spiral of slavish consumerism, he proposes a form of liberal communitarian that, he suggests, will allow human beings to flourish in changing circumstances. Jonathan Wolff, Blavatnik Chair of Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Martin Sand explores the problems of responsibility at the early, visionary stages of technological development. He discusses the increasingly dominant concept of innovation and outlines how narratives about the future are currently used to facilitate technological change, to foster networks, and to raise public awareness for innovations. This set of activities is under increasing scrutiny as a form of “visioneering”. The author discusses intentionality and freedom as important, albeit fuzzy, preconditions for being responsible. He distinguishes being from holding responsible and explores this distinction's effects on the problem of moral luck. Finally, he develops a virtue ethical framework to discuss visioneers'and innovators'responsibilities.​

The book offers a compact but comprehensive introductory overview of the crucial components of argumentation theory. In presenting this overview, argumentation is consistently approached from a pragma-dialectical perspective by viewing it pragmatically as a goal-directed communicative activity and dialectically as part of a regulated critical exchange aimed at resolving a difference of opinion. As a result, the book also systematically explains how the constitutive parts of the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation, which are discussed in a number of separate publications, hang together.The following crucial topics are discussed: (1) argumentation theory as a discipline; (2) the meta-theoretical principles of pragma-dialectics; (3) the model of a critical discussion aimed at resolving a difference of opinion; (4) fallacies as violations of a code of conduct for reasonable argumentative discourse; (5) descriptive research of argumentative reality; (6) analysis as theoretically-motivated reconstruction; (7) strategic manoeuvring aimed at combining achieving effectiveness with maintaining reasonableness; (8) the conventionalization of argumentative practices; (9) prototypical argumentative patterns; (10) pragma-dialectics amidst other approaches.Argumentation Theory: A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective is clearly written and makes argumentation theory understandable to all scholars and advanced students interested in argumentation research.

First published in 1985, this book provides a stimulating series of inter-connected essays which address the theme of shame, which, unlike the problem of conscience, has been seldom discussed by moral philosophers. The essays focus on the ethical regulation of human action and judgement, examining both its constant and varying elements and concentrating on contemporary types of moral regulation. Professor Heller uses Aristotelian categories, such as the good life, in her discourse to present a new conception of rationality, distinguishing between shame regulation and conscience regulation of moral conduct, and arguing that shame regulation cannot be completely overcome even in an age of rationalism.

Hermeneutic turn of philosophy, initiated by Dilthey and Heidegger (Przyłębski devoted to it the so titled book, published in 2004), led to a reevaluation of understanding of the classical disciplines of philosophy, from ontology and epistemology to aesthetics and ethics. Cognitive importance of these disciplines have been relativized to the cultural conditions in which they operate. With regard to ethics it does not lead to the creation of some new'hermeneutic ethics', but to the hermeneutic approach to ethics, which underlines value of existing morality and reduces the pretensions of philosophical ethics to universal validity. This book presents it on the ground of a solid and innovatory analysis of ethical considerations of Schleiermacher, Nietzsche, Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer, Ricoeur and Günter Abel.

If human biological evolution is part of our worldview, then how do commonplace notions of ethics fit in? To ask the question, “what does evolution imply about ethics?” we must first be clear about what we mean by evolution. Evolution and the Foundations of Ethics discusses four models of evolution, represented by Darwin, Dawkins, Gould, and Haught. We must also be clear about what we mean by ethics. Do we mean metaethics? If so, which variety? With metaethical theories (such as Error Theory, Expressivism, Moral Relativism, and Moral Realism), theorists are attempting to explain the general nature, status, and origins of ethics. In the first four chapters of this book (Part I), John Mizzoni examines how metaethical theories fit with evolution. Next, in asking about the implications of evolution for ethics,do we mean normative ethics? Theorists who work with normative ethical theories—such as Virtue Ethics, Natural Law Ethics, Social Contract Ethics, Utilitarian Ethics, Deontological Ethics, and Ethics of Care)—articulate and defend a normative ethics that people can and do use in a practical way when deliberating about specific actions, rules, and policies. The next six chapters (Part II) look at how normative ethical theories fit with evolution. A full reckoning of ethics and evolution demands that we consider the range of ethical elements, both metaethical and normative. Thus, this book looks at what several different models of evolution imply about four metaethical theories and six normative ethical theories. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in the intersection of evolutionary theory and ethical theory.

Like its companion Seventy Moral (and Immoral) Polarities of the Everyday (2016), this volume is a set of seventy mini-meditations on opposite states of the moral or emotional life – goodness and badness, ugly and beautiful, quiet and raucous. Each item, in each polarity, is allowed to gather up a picture, a tale, or a logical adventure, and then to leave behind it multi-part reflections which play out in the reader's mind. The operational energy here is partly prayer or mantra and partly half-completed logical conundrum. Is there a new form of private devotional at work here?