![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Ethical issues & debates
On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh detonated a two-ton truck bomb that felled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. On June 11, 2001, an unprecedented 242 witnesses watched him die by lethal injection. In the aftermath of the bombings, American public commentary almost immediately turned to "closure" rhetoric. Reporters and audiences alike speculated about whether victim's family members and survivors could get closure from memorial services, funerals, legislation, monuments, trials, and executions. But what does "closure" really mean for those who survive-or lose loved ones in-traumatic acts? In the wake of such terrifying events, is closure a realistic or appropriate expectation? In Killing McVeigh, Jody Lynee Madeira uses the Oklahoma City bombing as a case study to explore how family members and other survivors come to terms with mass murder. The book demonstrates the importance of understanding what closure really is before naively asserting it can or has been reached.
Who are the vulnerable, and what makes them so? Through an innovative application of English School theory, this book suggests that people are vulnerable not only to natural risks, but also to the workings of international society. This replicates the approach of those studies of natural disasters that now commonly present a social vulnerability analysis, showing how people are differentially exposed by their social location. Could international society have similar effects? This question is explored through the cases of political violence, climate change, human movement, and global health. These cases provide rich detail on how, through its social practices of the vulnerable, international society constructs the vulnerable in its own terms, and sets up regimes of protection that prioritize some forms at the expense of others. What this demonstrates above all is that, even if only a 'practical' association, international society inevitably has moral consequences in the way it influences the relative distribution of harm. As a result, these four pressing policy issues now present themselves as fundamentally moral problems. Revising the arguments of E. H. Carr, the author points out the essentially contested normative nature of international order. However, instead of as a moral clash between revisionist and status quo powers, as Carr had suggested, the problem is instead one about the contested nature of vulnerability, insofar as vulnerability is an expression of power relations, but also gives rise to a moral claim. By providing a holistic treatment in this way, the book makes practical sense of the vulnerable, while also seeking to make moral sense of international society.
In this study, Stephanie Budin demonstrates that sacred prostitution, the sale of a person s body for sex in which some or all of the money earned was devoted to a deity or a temple, did not exist in the ancient world. Reconsidering the evidence from the ancient Near East, the Greco-Roman texts, and the Early Christian authors, Budin shows that the majority of sources that have traditionally been understood as pertaining to sacred prostitution actually have nothing to do with this institution. The few texts that are usually invoked on this subject are, moreover, terribly misunderstood. Furthermore, contrary to many current hypotheses, the creation of the myth of sacred prostitution has nothing to do with notions of accusation or the construction of a decadent, Oriental Other. Instead, the myth has come into being as a result of more than 2,000 years of misinterpretations, false assumptions, and faulty methodology. The study of sacred prostitution is, effectively, a historiographical reckoning."
Asymmetric conflict is changing the way that we practise and think about war. Torture, rendition, assassination, blackmail, extortion, direct attacks on civilians, and chemical weapons are all finding their way to the battlefield despite longstanding international prohibitions. This book offers a practical guide for policy makers, military officers, students, and others who ask such questions as: Do guerillas deserve respect or long jail sentences? Are there grounds to torture guerillas for information or assassinate them on the battlefield? Is there room for nonlethal weapons to subdue militants and safeguard the lives of noncombatants? Who are noncombatants in asymmetric war? What is the status of civilians who shelter and aid guerillas? And, do guerillas have any right to attack civilians, particularly those who aid and shelter members of the stronger army? If one side can expand the scope of civilian vulnerability, then why can t the other? To read and comment on Michael Gross's blog article on the UN Human Rights Council Report on Gaza, click here
Asymmetric conflict is changing the way that we practise and think about war. Torture, rendition, assassination, blackmail, extortion, direct attacks on civilians, and chemical weapons are all finding their way to the battlefield despite longstanding international prohibitions. This book offers a practical guide for policy makers, military officers, students, and others who ask such questions as: Do guerillas deserve respect or long jail sentences? Are there grounds to torture guerillas for information or assassinate them on the battlefield? Is there room for nonlethal weapons to subdue militants and safeguard the lives of noncombatants? Who are noncombatants in asymmetric war? What is the status of civilians who shelter and aid guerillas? And, do guerillas have any right to attack civilians, particularly those who aid and shelter members of the stronger army? If one side can expand the scope of civilian vulnerability, then why can t the other? To read and comment on Michael Gross's blog article on the UN Human Rights Council Report on Gaza, click here
Disclosure is a frequently used but rarely interrogated concept in health and social welfare. Abuse, disability, sexuality and health status can be 'disclosed' to peers and professionals, and on some occasions, disclosure is a requirement and not a choice. This innovative collection examines the new social and political implications of disclosure practices in health and illness. We make our identities and our connections with others by sharing life stories, experiences and innermost desires and are often asked to disclose facts about our lives, bodies and minds, at times with unintended consequences. Yet how and what, why and when people 'disclose' - and perceive, question and expose - and in what ways, has rarely received critical analytic attention. The contributors take up these problems by foregrounding the many shades of disclosure: from the secret, through the telling of diagnosis, to the more prosaic sharing of narratives from everyday life. The processes and implications of disclosing are addressed in areas such as: illness trajectories and end-of-life decisions; ethical research practices; medical procedures; and interpersonal relationships. Exploring the idea of disclosure as a moral imperative and a social act, this book offers a diverse range of empirical case studies, social theories and methodological insights to show how dominant and normative understandings of social relationships and their obligations shape our understanding of acts of disclosure, enquiry and exposure. It will be of interest to students and academics with an interest in narrative studies, medical anthropology, bioethics, health psychology, health studies and the sociology of health and illness.
This volume is the result of the many years the authors have spent conducting ethnographic field research with sex workers, conversing with other researchers, and, perhaps most importantly, developing a deep sense of empathy for the sex worker participants in the research as well as the colleagues who carry out this work with the goal of advancing social justice. They have a combined total of twenty-five years' experience carrying out research with sex workers, and this extensive period of time has given them ample opportunity to reflect upon the topic of ethics. Sex work, defined as the exchange of sexual or sexualized intimacy for money or something of value, encompasses a wide range of legal and illegal behaviors that present researchers with key ethical challenges explored in the volume. These ethical challenges include: * Research methodology * Distinguishing research from activism * Navigating the politically and ideologically charged environments in which researchers must remain constantly attuned to the legal and public policy implications of their work * Possibilities for participatory sex work research processes * Strategies for incorporating participants in a variety of collaborative ways Sex work presents a unique set of challenges that are not always well understood by those working outside of anthropology and disciplines closely related to it. This book serves an important function by honestly and openly reviewing strategies for overcoming these ethical challenges with the end goal of producing path-breaking research that actively incorporates the perspectives of research participants on their own terms. Ever attuned to the reality that research on sex work remains a deeply political act, Ethical Research with Sex Workers: Anthropological Approaches aspires to begin a dialogue about the meanings and practices ascribed to ethics in a fraught environment. Drawing upon a review of published scholarly and activist work on the subject, as well as on interviews with researchers, social service providers, and sex workers themselves, this volume is an unprecedented contribution to the literature that will engage researchers across a variety of disciplines, such as academics and researchers in anthropology, sociology, criminal justice, and public health, as well as activists and policymakers.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in "Roe v. Wade" stands as a
historic victory for abortion-rights activists. But rather than
serving as the coda to what had been a comparatively low-profile
social conflict, the decision mobilized a wave of anti-abortion
protests and ignited a heated struggle that continues to this day.
In the nineteenth century British authorities at home and abroad attempted to regulate prostitution in order to combat the spread of venereal diseases. Philip Howell examines in detail four sites of such regulated prostitution - Liverpool, Cambridge, Gibraltar and Hong Kong - and considers the similarities as well as the differences between colonial and metropolitan practices. Placing these sites within their local, regional and global contexts, the author argues that the British administration of commercial sexuality was deeper and more extensive than conventionally portrayed. The book challenges our understanding of what constitutes colonial regulation and also confronts imperial historiographies in which projects are simply translated from metropolis to periphery. By emphasizing both particular sites of regulated prostitution, and their place in the British imperial world, this book contributes not only to histories of gender and sexuality, but also to the revision of British imperial history.
This book analyzes the discourses and deliberations in the discussion forums of three of the most visited Islamic websites. In doing so, it explores the potential impact of the Islamic public sphere, as well as the re-configuration of the 'virtual umma' (Islamic community) online on the creation of multiple identities and resistances, which manifest themselves through various Islamic sites, producing varying degrees of consensus, divergence, and negotiation in multiple contexts and across different discourses. The book also investigates the extent to which these Islamic websites have provided a venue for Muslims to freely engage in vibrant deliberations and constructive discussions among themselves, as well as with 'Others', i.e., non-Muslims, about various political, economic, religious and social issues.
Poverty, inequality, violence, environmental degradation, and tyranny continue to afflict the world. Ethics of Global Development offers a moral reflection on the ends and means of local, national, and global efforts to overcome these five scourges. After emphasizing the role of ethics in development studies, policy-making, and practice, David A. Crocker analyzes and evaluates Amartya Sen's philosophy of development in relation to alternative ethical outlooks. He argues that Sen's turn to robust ideals of human agency and democracy improves on both Sen's earlier emphasis on 'capabilities and functionings' and Martha Nussbaum's version of the capability orientation. This agency-focused capability approach is then extended and strengthened by applying it to the challenges of consumerism and hunger, the development responsibilities of affluent individuals and nations, and the dilemmas of globalization. Throughout the book the author argues for the importance of more inclusive and deliberative democratic institutions.
"Ball's arguments are concise, compelling, and backed with considerable case law. This volume is highly recommended for upper-level undergraduates and above in law, philosophy, and the medical humanities interested in the 'right to die' debates. Summing up: Highly recommended." -Choice Over the past hundred years, average life expectancy in America has nearly doubled, due largely to scientific and medical advances, but also as a consequence of safer working conditions, a heightened awareness of the importance of diet and health, and other factors. Yet while longevity is celebrated as an achievement in modern civilization, the longer people live, the more likely they are to succumb to chronic, terminal illnesses. In 1900, the average life expectancy was 47 years, with a majority of American deaths attributed to influenza, tuberculosis, pneumonia, or other diseases. In 2000, the average life expectancy was nearly 80 years, and for too many people, these long lifespans included cancer, heart failure, Lou Gehrig's disease, AIDS, or other fatal illnesses, and with them, came debilitating pain and the loss of a once-full and often independent lifestyle. In this compelling and provocative book, noted legal scholar Howard Ball poses the pressing question: is it appropriate, legally and ethically, for a competent individual to have the liberty to decide how and when to die when faced with a terminal illness? At Liberty to Die charts how, the right of a competent, terminally ill person to die on his or her own terms with the help of a doctor has come deeply embroiled in debates about the relationship between religion, civil liberties, politics, and law in American life. Exploring both the legal rulings and the media frenzies that accompanied the Terry Schiavo case and others like it, Howard Ball contends that despite raging battles in all the states where right to die legislation has been proposed, the opposition to the right to die is intractable in its stance. Combining constitutional analysis, legal history, and current events, Ball surveys the constitutional arguments that have driven the right to die debate.
The death penalty landscape has changed considerably since the first edition of this book was published in 1998. For example, five states that had the death penalty in 1998 - Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico and New York - no longer impose the punishment. Some of the changes set out in this second edition involve discussions of all of the significant cases decided by the United States Supreme Court after 1998, including Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005); Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002); Schriro v. Smith, 126 S.Ct. 7 (2005); Harbison v. Bell, 129 S.Ct. 1481 (2009); Holmes v. South Carolina, 126 S.Ct. 1727 (2006); Kansas v. Marsh, 126 S.Ct. 2516 (2006); Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584 (2002); Sattazahn v. Pennsylvania, 537 U.S. 101 (2003). This new edition includes 13 new chapters. Areas covered by some of the new chapters include Capital felon's defense team; Habeas corpus, coram nobis and section 1983 proceedings; the Innocence protection act and post-conviction DNA testing; Challenging the death sentence under racial justice acts; Inhabited American territories and capital punishment; and the Costs of capital punishment.
Prostitution often causes significant anxiety for communities. These communities have been known to campaign against its presence in 'their' neighbourhoods, seeking the removal of street sex workers and their male clients. Although research and literature has begun to explore prostitution from the standpoint of the community, there is no comprehensive text which brings together some of the current literature in this area. This book aspires to cast light on some of this work by exploring the nature, extent and visibility of prostitution in residential communities and business areas, considering the legal and social context in which it is situated, and the community responses of those who live and work in areas of sex work. This book aims to examine current literature on the impacts of prostitution in residential areas and considers how different policy approaches employed by the police and local authorities have mediated and shaped the nature of sex work in different communities. It explores what communities think about prostitution and those involved, as well as studies the techniques and strategies communities have utilized to take action against prostitution in their neighbourhoods. This book will also demonstrate the diversity of public attitudes, action and reaction to prostitution in the community. This book is a useful contribution for academics and researchers in the fields of Criminology and Sociology who wish to understand current policy initiatives surrounding the issue of prostitution in local, national and international community settings.
"Better Left Unsaid" is in the unseemly position of defending
censorship from the central allegations that are traditionally
leveled against it. Taking two genres generally presumed to have
been stymied by the censor's knife--the Victorian novel and
classical Hollywood film--this book reveals the varied ways in
which censorship, for all its blustery self-righteousness, can
actually be good for sex, politics, feminism, and art.
What is important to ethical consumers when thinking about going on holiday and how do they incorporate their lifestyle choices into these holidays? What values inform their lifestyles and how do they satisfy these values on holiday? Do ethical consumers automatically become ethical tourists or is the situation a little more complex than this? In an attempt to answer these questions, this book explores: The ethical dilemmas associated with tourism The concerns and motivations of ethical consumers on holiday The role and importance of values in holiday decision-making This book offers a highly original contribution to the debate surrounding the demand for ethical and responsible holidays. It explores the consumption concerns of ethical consumers and their motivational values, and offers a detailed examination of how they manage these values on holiday. This book offers a new and challenging perspective to the study of responsible tourism by providing a unique empirical insight into how responsible tourists incorporate their norms and values into their holiday decisions. The text will be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and tutors on courses that have tourism and the tourist at their centre, and to academics in other disciplines such as marketing and consumer behaviour. It will also be highly relevant to the global tourism industry.
Based on three years of extensive fieldwork, this ethnographic study of prostitution in the metropolitan city of Dalian, China, explores the lives of rural migrant women working as karaoke bar hostesses, delving into the interplay of gender politics, nationalism, and power relationships that inhere in practices of birth control, disease control, and control of women's bodies.
Civil libertarians characterize prostitution as a "victimless crime," and argue that it ought to be legalized. Feminist critics counter that prostitution is not victimless, since it harms the people who do it. Civil libertarians respond that most women freely choose to do this work, and that it is paternalistic for the government to limit a person's liberty for her own good. In this book Peter de Marneffe argues that although most prostitution is voluntary, paternalistic prostitution laws in some form are nonetheless morally justifiable. If prostitution is commonly harmful in the way that feminist critics maintain, then this argument for prostitution laws is not objectionably moralistic and some prostitution laws violate no one's rights. Paternalistic prostitution laws in some form are therefore consistent with the fundamental principles of contemporary liberalism. "Philosophically distinctive and empirically well-supported. It deserves to be taken very seriously in any subsequent discussion of prostitution." -Analysis "On the whole, de Marneffe has written a thorough and sharp book challenging some tenets of liberalism and their application to prostitution laws. De Marneffe's book carefully explores the intersection of liberalism, paternalism, and prostitution laws and is important for anyone interested in this area of criminal law theory." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Poverty, inequality, violence, environmental degradation, and tyranny continue to afflict the world. Ethics of Global Development offers a moral reflection on the ends and means of local, national, and global efforts to overcome these five scourges. After emphasizing the role of ethics in development studies, policymaking, and practice, David A. Crocker analyzes and evaluates Amartya Sen's philosophy of development in relation to alternative ethical outlooks. He argues that Sen's recent turn to robust ideals of human agency and democracy improves on both Sen's earlier emphasis on 'capabilities and functionings' and Martha Nussbaum's version of the capability orientation. This agency-focused capability approach is then extended and strengthened by applying it to the challenges of consumerism and hunger, the development responsibilities of affluent individuals and nations, and the dilemmas of globalization. Throughout the book the author argues for the importance of more inclusive and deliberative democratic institutions.
Focusing on the period 1566-1656, this original and lively study sheds new light on the daily lives and material culture of ordinary prostitutes and their clients in Rome after the Counter-Reformation. Tessa Storey uses a range of archival sources, including criminal records, letters, courtroom testimonies, images and popular and elite literature, to reveal issues of especial concern to contemporaries. In particular, she explores how and why women became prostitutes, the relationships between prostitutes and clients, and the wealth which potentially could be accumulated. Notarial documents provide a unique perspective on the economics and material culture of prostitution, showing what could be earned and how prostitutes dressed and furnished their homes. The book challenges traditional assumptions about the success of post-Tridentine reforms on Roman prostitution, revealing that despite energetic attempts at social disciplining by the Counter-Reformation Popes, prostitution continued to flourish, and to provide a lucrative living for many women.
Our world and the people within it are increasingly interpreted and classified by automated systems. At the same time, automated classifications influence what happens in the physical world. These entanglements change what it means to interact with governance, and shift what elements of our identity are knowable and meaningful. In this cyber-physical world, or 'world state', what is the role for law? Specifically, how should law address the claim that computational systems know us better than we know ourselves? Monitoring Laws traces the history of government profiling from the invention of photography through to emerging applications of computer vision for personality and behavioral analysis. It asks what dimensions of profiling have provoked legal intervention in the past, and what is different about contemporary profiling that requires updating our legal tools. This work should be read by anyone interested in how computation is changing society and governance, and what it is about people that law should protect in a computational world.
Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable
question: what does it mean to be 'human' in the 21st century? As
definitions between what is 'animal' and what is 'human' break
down, and as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence
and nano- and bio- technologies develop, accepted notions of
humanity are rapidly evolving.
This book offers a political, ideological, and social history of the national right-to-life movement in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan. It analyzes anti-abortion engagement with the legislative, judicial, and executive branches, and offers what is frequently a narrative of disappointment and factionalism. The chapters explore pro-life responses to Supreme Court vacancies, attempts to pass a constitutional amendment, and broader legislative and bureaucratic strategies, including successful campaigns against international and domestic family planning programs. The book suggests that the 1980s transformed the anti-abortion cause, limiting the types of ideas and approaches possible at a national level. Although the movement later claimed Reagan as a "pro-life hero," while he was President right-to-lifers continuously struggled with the gap between his words and deeds. They also had a fraught relationship with the broader Republican Party. This book charts the political education of right-to-lifers, offering insights into social movement activism and conservatism in the late twentieth century.
Few ethical issues create as much controversy as invasive experiments on animals. Some scientists claim they are essential for combating major human diseases, or detecting human toxins. Others claim the contrary, backed by thousands of patients harmed by pharmaceuticals developed using animal tests. Some claim all experiments are conducted humanely, to high scientific standards. Yet, a wealth of studies have recently revealed that laboratory animals suffer significant stress, which may distort experimental results. a Where, then, does the truth lie? How useful are such experiments in advancing human healthcare? How much do animals suffer as a result? And do students really need to dissect or experiment on animals? What are the effects on their attitudes towards them? Bioethicist and veterinarian Andrew Knight presents more than a decade of groundbreaking scientific research, analysis and experience to provide evidence-based answers to a key question: is animal experimentation ethically justifiable?
A comprehensive history of censorship in modern Britain For Victorian lawmakers and judges, the question of whether a book should be allowed to circulate freely depended on whether it was sold to readers whose mental and moral capacities were in doubt, by which they meant the increasingly literate and enfranchised working classes. The law stayed this way even as society evolved. In 1960, in the obscenity trial over D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, the prosecutor asked the jury, "Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?" Christopher Hilliard traces the history of British censorship from the Victorians to Margaret Thatcher, exposing the tensions between obscenity law and a changing British society. Hilliard goes behind the scenes of major obscenity trials and uncovers the routines of everyday censorship, shedding new light on the British reception of literary modernism and popular entertainments such as the cinema and American-style pulp fiction and comic books. He reveals the thinking of lawyers and the police, authors and publishers, and politicians and ordinary citizens as they wrestled with questions of freedom and morality. He describes how supporters and opponents of censorship alike tried to remake the law as they reckoned with changes in sexuality and culture that began in the 1960s. Based on extensive archival research, this incisive and multifaceted book reveals how the issue of censorship challenged British society to confront issues ranging from mass literacy and democratization to feminism, gay rights, and multiculturalism. |
You may like...
Padri Elliott of Faizabad [microform…
Joseph Alexander 1852-1905 Elliott
Hardcover
R923
Discovery Miles 9 230
|