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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Ethical issues & debates
Twenty-five years after the start of the feminist sex wars, pornography remains a flashpoint issue, with feminists locked in a familiar argument: Are women victims or agents? In At Home with Pornography, Jane Juffer exposes the fruitlessness of this debate and suggests that it has prevented us from realizing women's changing relationship to erotica and porn. Over the course of these same twenty-five years, there has been a proliferation of sexually explicit materials geared toward women, made available in increasingly mainstream venues. In asking "what is the relationship of women to pornography?" Juffer maintains that we need to stop obsessing over pornography's transgressive aspects, and start focusing on the place of porn and erotica in women's everyday lives. Where, she asks, do women routinely find it, for how much, and how is it circulated and consumed within the home? How is this circulation and consumption shaped by the different marketing categories that attempt to distinguish erotica from porn, such as women's literary erotica and sexual self-help videos for couples? At Home with Pornography responds to these questions by viewing women's erotica within the context of governmental regulation that attempts to counterpose a "dangerous" pornography with the sanctity of the home. Juffer explorers how women's consumption of erotica and porn for their own pleasure can be empowering, while still acting to reinforce conservative ideals. She shows how, for instance, the Victoria's Secret catalog is able to function as a kind of pornography whose circulation is facilitated both by its reliance on Victorian themes of secrecy and privacy and on its appeals to the selfish pleasures of modern career women. In her pursuit to understand what women like and how they get it, Juffer delves into adult cable channels, erotic literary anthologies, sex therapy guides, cyberporn, masturbation, and sex toys, showing the varying degrees to which these materials have been domesticated for home consumption. Representing the next generation of scholarship on pornography, At Home with Pornography will transform our understanding of women's everyday sexuality.
This timely collection of introductory essays provides a comprehensive and up--to--date guide to, and survey of, the major moral debates of today.* Wide coverage and introduction to the main issues and arguments of applied ethics * Each chapter specially commissioned to introduce newcomers * Comprehensive notes and reading guides
As concern grows over the environmental costs and ethical implications of intensive factory farming, an increasing number of us are embracing diets and lifestyles free from animal products. Has the time now arrived for us all to reject the exploitation of animals completely and become vegan? Would adopting a wholly plant-based diet be beneficial for our health? How would a majority vegan population affect the global economy and the planet? Does it make any sense to go flexitarian or vegetarian? Molly Watson explores the history, rationale and impact of veganism on an individual, social and global level, and assesses the effects of a mass change in diet on our environment, the economy and our health. Table of Contents Introduction, The Evolution of Veganism, Why Go Vegan Today?, The Challenges of Veganism, A Vegan Planet, Conclusion.
Privacy is gravely endangered in the digital age, and we, the digital citizens, are its principal threat, willingly surrendering it to avail ourselves of new technology, and granting the government and corporations immense power over us. In this highly original work, Firmin DeBrabander begins with this premise and asks how we can ensure and protect our freedom in the absence of privacy. Can-and should-we rally anew to support this institution? Is privacy so important to political liberty after all? DeBrabander makes the case that privacy is a poor foundation for democracy, that it is a relatively new value that has been rarely enjoyed throughout history-but constantly persecuted-and politically and philosophically suspect. The vitality of the public realm, he argues, is far more significant to the health of our democracy, but is equally endangered-and often overlooked-in the digital age.
How digital media are transforming Arab culture, literature, and politics In recent years, Arab activists have confronted authoritarian regimes both on the street and online, leaking videos and exposing atrocities, and demanding political rights. Tarek El-Ariss situates these critiques of power within a pervasive culture of scandal and leaks and shows how cultural production and political change in the contemporary Arab world are enabled by digital technology yet emerge from traditional cultural models. Focusing on a new generation of activists and authors from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, El-Ariss connects WikiLeaks to The Arabian Nights, Twitter to mystical revelation, cyberattacks to pre-Islamic tribal raids, and digital activism to the affective scene-making of Arab popular culture. He shifts the epistemological and historical frameworks from the postcolonial condition to the digital condition and shows how new media challenge the novel as the traditional vehicle for political consciousness and intellectual debate. Theorizing the rise of "the leaking subject" who reveals, contests, and writes through chaotic yet highly political means, El-Ariss investigates the digital consciousness, virality, and affective forms of knowledge that jolt and inform the public and that draw readers in to the unfolding fiction of scandal. Leaks, Hacks, and Scandals maps the changing landscape of Arab modernity, or Nahda, in the digital age and traces how concepts such as the nation, community, power, the intellectual, the author, and the novel are hacked and recoded through new modes of confrontation, circulation, and dissent.
This compelling book uses 103 illustrations to argue that modes of
visualizing science have profoundly determined "fetal politics" and
the contemporary abortion debates. With its close interplay of
visual and verbal texts, it traces both the history of fetal images
from the sixteenth century onward (including the classic Life
magazine photographs of Lennart Nilsson in 1965) and the
consequences of how obstetrical and embryological knowledge was
represented over time in Europe--to both specialists and the
public--as medical knowledge came to be produced and understood
through anatomical observation.
In An American Brothel, Amanda Boczar considers sexual encounters between American servicemen and civilians throughout the Vietnam War, and she places those fraught and sometimes violent meetings in the context of the US military and diplomatic campaigns. In 1966, US Senator J. William Fulbright declared that "Saigon has become an American brothel." Concerned that, as US military involvement in Vietnam increased so, too, had prostitution, black market economies, and a drug trade fueled by American dollars, Fulbright decried an arrogance of power on the part of Americans and the corrosive effects unchecked immorality could have on Vietnam as well as on the war effort. The symbol, at home and abroad, of the sweeping social and cultural changes was often the so-called South Vietnamese bar girl. As the war progressed, peaking in 1968 with more than half a million troops engaged, the behavior of soldiers off the battlefield started to impact affect the conflict more broadly. Beyond the brothel, shocking revelations of rapes and the increase in marriage applications complicated how the South Vietnamese and American allies cooperated and managed social behavior. Strictures on how soldiers conducted themselves during rest and relaxation time away from battle further eroded morale of disaffected servicemen. The South Vietnamese were loath to loosen moral restrictions and feared deleterious influence of a permissive wWestern culture on their society. From the consensual to the coerced, sexual encounters shaped the Vietnam War. Boczar shows that these encounters-sometimes facilitated and sometimes banned by the US military command-restructured the South Vietnamese economy, captivated international attention, dictated military policies, and hung over diplomatic relations during and after the war.
Tommy Kane brings together, for the first time, a collection of contemporary vegan artists whose works grapple with one of the biggest issues of our century and confront our conflicted relationship with animals. With diverse contributions, Vegan Art combines a passion for art as a language with the rebellion against animal abuse and exploitation, with the belief that art should be a mechanism for social change. The complex visual language of the book is purposefully graphic and controversial. From utopian depictions of a world that vegans are fighting for, to dark dystopian impressions and brutal, bloody mutilations of non-human animals in industrial agriculture, the project tests the potential of our humanity and asks for equality for all species. With violent imagery and references to major food corporations - such as McDonalds - the project is unflinching in its advocation of veganism and animal rights. Vegan Art engenders a sense of humility with a shared view that art has the power to move people to be informed consumers. Featuring artworks by Tommy Kane, Andrew Tilsley, Milk DoNg Comics, Dan Piraro, Melinda Hegedus, Tommy Flynn and Cynical Coyote.
What role does ethics play in modern-day warfare? Is it possible for ethics and militarism to exist hand-in-hand? James Eastwood examines the Israeli military and its claim to be 'the most moral army in the world'. This claim has been strongly contested by human rights bodies and international institutions in their analysis of recent military engagements in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. Yet at the same time, many in Israel believe this claim, including the general public, military personnel and politicians. Compiled from extensive research including interviews with soldiers, Eastwood unpacks the ethical pedagogy of the Israeli military, as well as soldier-led activism which voices a moral critique, and argues that the belief in moral warfare doesn't exist separately from the growing violence of Israel's occupation. This book is ideal for those interested in military ethics and Israeli politics, and provides crucial in-depth analysis for students and researchers alike.
Good communication, conventional wisdom suggests, is calm, logical, rational. Emotions, we're told, just get in the way. But what if this is backwards? What if those emotional overtones are the main messages we're sending to one another, and all that logical language is just window dressing? Over billions of years of evolution, animals have become increasingly sophisticated and increasingly sentient. In the process, they evolved emotions, which helped improve their odds of survival in complex situations. These emotions were, at first, purely internal. But at some point, social animals began expressing their emotions, in increasingly dramatic ways. These emotional expressions could accurately reflect internal emotions (smiling to express happiness)-or they could be quite different (smiling to cover up that you're actually furious, but can't tell your boss that). Why did once-stone-faced animals evolve to be so emotionally expressive-to be us? The answer, as evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi and mathematician Tim Barber reveal, is that emotional expressions are our first and most important language-one that allows us, as social animals, to engage in highly sophisticated communications and negotiations. Expressly Human introduces an original theory that explains, from first principles, how the broad range of emotional expressions evolved, and provides a Rosetta Stone for human communication. It will revolutionize the way you see every social interaction, from deciding who gets the last slice of pizza to multimillion-dollar business negotiations, and change your definition of what makes us human.
The Cambridge Handbook of Applied Psychological Ethics is a valuable resource for psychologists and graduate students hoping to further develop their ethical decision making beyond more introductory ethics texts. The book offers real-world ethical vignettes and considerations. Chapters cover a wide range of practice settings, populations, and topics, and are written by scholars in these settings. Chapters focus on the application of ethics to the ethical dilemmas in which mental health and other psychology professionals sometimes find themselves. Each chapter introduces a setting and gives readers a brief understanding of some of the potential ethical issues at hand, before delving deeper into the multiple ethical issues that must be addressed and the ethical principles and standards involved. No other book on the market captures the breadth of ethical issues found in daily practice and focuses entirely on applied ethics in psychology.
The role of the Hague Convention in today's world revisited. Significant attention today focusses on heritage destruction, but the key international laws prohibiting it - the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its First and Second Protocols (1954/1999) - lay out two core strands to limit the damage: the measures of respect for armed forces, and the safeguarding measures states parties should put in place in peacetime. This volume incorporates wide-ranging international perspectives from those in the academy, together with practitioner insights from the armed forces and heritage professionals, to explore the safeguarding regime. Its contributors consider such questions as whether state parties have truly taken "all possible steps", as the Convention tasks them; what we can learn from past practice, and how the Convention is implemented today; the implications of new trends in heritage law and management - such as the rise of the World Heritage Convention, and in the increasing focus on safe havens rather than refuges; whether new methods of heritage management such as Risk Assessment theory can be applied; and, in a Convention specifically focussed on state parties, what of their opponents, armed non-state actors. Topics range from leadership and the role of the State Party Representative, to the responsibilities of armed non-state groups in safeguarding, to explorations of past and current practice in different countries. Using a mix of case studies and theoretical explorations of new and existing methodologies, the contributions cover a broad timespan from World War II to today, with examples from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Overall, the volume's purpose is to promote wider understanding of the practical effectiveness of the Convention in the contemporary world, by investigating the perceived opportunities and constraints the Convention offers today to protect cultural property in armed conflict, and firmly establishing that such protection must begin in peace. CONTRIBUTORS: Maamoun Abdulkarim, Laura Albisetti, Pascal Bongard, Brittni Bradford, Rino Buchel, Emma Cunliffe, Philip Deans, Joanne Dingwall McCafferty, Paul Fox, Kristin Hausler, Stavros-Evdokimos Pantazopoulos, Nikolaus Paumgartner, Nigel Pollard, Lee Rotherham, Valentina Sabucco, Peter Stone, Raphael Zingg.
"The Culture of Cynicism" is the most wide-ranging and thought-provoking book yet written on American morality. It traces the intellectual history of American morality from its European origins in the Middle Ages to the 1990s. American culture, Professor Stivers argues, is a culture of cynicism. The pursuit of the mystical values of success, survival, happiness, and health has produced a corrosive and pervasive morality which is actually an "anti-morality." The result is a world in which there are norms without meaning, and everyday life is reduced to an empty struggle for power and satisfaction. This leads to boredom, unhappiness, anxiety, depression, addiction, susceptibility to religious cults, bizarre psychotherapies, widespread divorce, and damaged personal relationships. "The Culture of Cynicism" not only lays bare the internal contradictions of American morality, but also charts the new forms it has assumed. It demonstrates compellingly that neither liberal nor conservative commentators on America's moral decline have grasped what is really the case: that American morality itself is the source of this decline. What we need is not a "return" to higher moral standards, but a complete revision of America's foundational ethics.
The Big Idea shortlisted for series design in the British Design and Production Awards In the wake of the #MeToo movement and the upsurge in feminist and men's rights activism, traditional masculinity has become a topic of impassioned debate. But what exactly do we mean by 'masculinity' and in what ways can it be said to be harmful? This incisive volume evaluates modern masculinity's capacity for good against its potential for destruction. It reviews evolving definitions of masculinity since the age of chivalry and examines our current expectations about men's behaviours, roles and responsibilities. It reveals societal pressure on men to act aggressively, suppress emotion and be in control, and the impact of being a 'real man' on self and others.
Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Inquiry, second edition subjects important and controversial areas of public policy to philosophical scrutiny. Jonathan Wolff, a renowned philosopher and veteran of many public committees, introduces and assesses core problems and controversies in public policy from a philosophical standpoint. Each chapter focuses on an important area of public policy where there is considerable moral and political disagreement. Topics discussed include: * Can we defend inflicting suffering on animals in scientific experiments for human benefit? * What limits to gambling can be achieved through legislation? * What assumptions underlie drug policy? Can we justify punishing those who engage in actions that harm only themselves? * What is so bad about crime? What is the point of punishment? Other chapters discuss health care, disability, safety, and the free market. Throughout the book, fundamental questions for both philosopher and policy maker recur: what are the best methods for connecting philosophy and public policy? Should thinking about public policy be guided by an 'an ideal world' or the world we live in now? If there are 'knock down' arguments in philosophy why are there none in public policy? Revised throughout to reflect changes in policy and research, this second edition includes four new chapters, on risky new technologies, the future of work, poverty, and immigration. Each chapter concludes with 'Lessons for Philosophy' making this book not only an ideal introduction for those coming to philosophy, ethics, or public policy for the first time, but also a vital resource for anyone grappling with the moral complexity underlying policy debates.
An Open Letters Review Best Book of the Year "One of the finest books on information security published so far in this century-easily accessible, tightly argued, superbly well-sourced, intimidatingly perceptive." -Thomas Rid, author of Active Measures "The best examination I have read of how increasingly dramatic developments in cyberspace are defining the 'new normal' of geopolitics in the digital age. Buchanan...captures the dynamics of all of this truly brilliantly." -General David Petraeus, former Director of the CIA and Commander of Coalition Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan Few national-security threats are as potent-or as nebulous-as cyber attacks. Ben Buchanan reveals how hackers are transforming spycraft and statecraft, catching us all in the crossfire, whether we know it or not. Ever since WarGames, we have been bracing for the cyberwar to come, conjuring images of exploding power plants and mass panic. But while cyber attacks are now disturbingly common, they don't look anything like we thought they would. Packed with insider information based on interviews, declassified files, and forensic analysis of company reports, The Hacker and the State sets aside fantasies of cyber-annihilation to explore the real geopolitical competition of the digital age. Tracing the conflict of wills and interests among modern nations, Ben Buchanan reveals little-known details of how China, Russia, North Korea, Britain, and the United States hack one another in a relentless struggle for dominance. His analysis moves deftly from underseas cable taps to underground nuclear sabotage, from blackouts and data breaches to billion-dollar heists and election interference. Buchanan brings to life this continuous cycle of espionage and deception, attack and counterattack, destabilization and retaliation. He explains why cyber attacks are far less destructive than we anticipated, far more pervasive, and much harder to prevent. With little fanfare and far less scrutiny, they impact our banks, our tech and health systems, our democracy, and every aspect of our lives. Quietly, insidiously, they have reshaped our national-security priorities and transformed spycraft and statecraft. The contest for geopolitical advantage has moved into cyberspace. The United States and its allies can no longer dominate the way they once did. The nation that hacks best will triumph.
Scandals in College Sports includes 21 classic and contemporary case studies and ethical dilemmas showcasing challenges that threatened the integrity and credibility of intercollegiate sports programs at a range of institutional types across the country. Cases cover NCAA policy violations and ethical dilemmas involving student-athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders, including scandals of academic misconduct, illegal recruiting practices, sexual assault, inappropriate sexual relationships, hazing, concussions, and point shaving. Each chapter author explores the details of the specific case, presents the dilemma in a broader sociocultural context, and ultimately offers an alternative ending to help guide future practice. This timely book highlights the impact that sports have on institutions of higher education and guides college leaders and educators in informed discussions of policy and practice.
The shocking story of a young girl forced into prostitution by her own father, and her painful journey to escape her horrific childhood and build a new life for herself and her sons. Maria's dad was a pimp, living in a world of thieves and street-walkers. Her mother, tiring of turning tricks for her husband, walked out, leaving the children in his chaotic, violent and sometimes cruel care. By the age of nine, Maria's father was abusing her and getting a prostitute friend to dress her up in stockings and make-up. By the time she was fourteen he was selling her on the streets of the red light district in Norwich. Despite everything Maria still loved her swaggering and sometimes charming father and found it hard to sort out her own feelings. At fifteen she ran away to King's Cross with an older lover who turned out to be just another pimp. Furious at losing a nice little earner her father involved the police and both he and the other man were jailed for living off Maria's immoral earnings. Only then could Maria escape her traumatic childhood and follow her dream of becoming a mother.
The story of sex tourism in the Gringo Gulch neighborhood of San Jose, Costa Rica could be easily cast as the exploitation of poor local women by privileged North American men men who are in a position to take advantage of the vast geopolitical inequalities that make Latin American women into suppliers of low-cost sexual labor. But in Gringo Gulch, Megan Rivers-Moore tells a more nuanced story, demonstrating that all the actors intimately entangled in the sex tourism industry sex workers, sex tourists, and the state use it as a strategy for getting ahead. Rivers-Moore situates her ethnography at the intersections of gender, race, class, and national dimensions in the sex industry. Instead of casting sex workers as hapless victims and sex tourists as neoimperialist racists, she reveals each group as involved in a complicated process of class mobility that must be situated within the sale and purchase of leisure and sex. These interactions operate within an almost entirely unregulated but highly competitive market beyond the reach of the state bringing a distinctly neoliberal cast to the market. Throughout the book, Rivers-Moore introduces us to remarkable characters Susan, a mother of two who doesn't regret her career of sex work; Barry, a teacher and father of two from Virginia who travels to Costa Rica to escape his loveless, sexless marriage; Nancy, a legal assistant in the Department of Labor who is shocked to find out that prostitution is legal and still unregulated. Gringo Gulch is a fascinating and groundbreaking look at sex tourism, Latin America, and the neoliberal state.
Since the publication of Sex Trafficking in 2007, Siddharth Kara has continued to travel across countries and continents, documenting the local factors and economic forces that support sexual slavery worldwide. His riveting encounters with victims and traffickers informed his screenplay for Trafficked (2016), now a major motion picture. The film features familiar figures from Sex Trafficking and the shocking conditions of their exploitation. It also includes cases Kara has uncovered since his book debuted. This new paperback edition of Sex Trafficking includes a preface by Kara in which he discusses his findings and updates the statistics relating to his business and economic analysis of contemporary slavery. After fifteen years, Kara has recorded nearly 900 cases of sex trafficking in forty-one countries and has helped advise on numerous legal, tactical, and policy efforts for abolishing modern-day slavery across the globe. Sex Trafficking continues to lead as a resource for those hoping to expose this hidden evil and eradicate its practice once and for all.
THE NEW INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE WORLD IS FLAT We all sense it: something big is going on. Life is speeding up, and it is dizzying. Here Thomas L. Friedman reveals the tectonic movements that are reshaping our world, how to adapt to this new age and why, sometimes, we all need to be late. 'A master class ... As a guide for perplexed Westerners, this book is very hard to beat ... an honest, cohesive explanation for why the world is the way it is, without miracle cures or scapegoats' John Micklethwait, The New York Times Book Review 'Wonderful ... admirably honest ... injects a badly needed dose of optimism into the modern debate' Gillian Tett, Financial Times 'His main piece of advice for individuals, corporations, and countries is clear: Take a deep breath and adapt. This world isn't going to wait for you' Fortune 'A humane and empathetic book' David Henkin, The Washington Post |
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