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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy
The first comprehensive and critical overview of Christian
perspectives on the relationship between social justice and
ecological integrity, this annotated bibliography focuses on works
that include ecological issues, social-ethical values and problems,
and explicitly theological or religious reflection on ecological
and social ethics and their interrelations. This body of moral
reflection on the relationship between ecological ethics and social
and economic justice (sometimes called eco-justice) will be of
interest to those involved in religious education, research,
liturgical renewal, public policy recommendations, community
action, lay witness, and personal life-style transformation. The
work is comprised of an introductory review essay followed by over
500 complete annotations. As a contemporary subject, much has been
written in the past 30 years about the Christian approaches to the
relationship between ecological integrity and social justice. The
literature comes from a variety of disciplines and perspectives:
from biblical studies to philosophical theology and cultural
criticism; and from evangelical theory to process, feminist, and
creation-centered theologies. Although there have been significant
movements and developments in this literature, much writing seems
unaware of other or earlier discussions of the interrelationships.
This volume brings all the works together.
Lisa Bellantoni argues that contemporary bioethics divides into two
logically incommensurable positions: a cult of rights, which
identifies the worth of human life with our autonomy, and a cult of
life, which identifies human worth with the possession of a soul,
and thereby, of human dignity.
Expressivism has been dominating much of the metaethical debate of
the past three decades. The aim of this book is to address a number
of questions that have been neglected in the previous
discussion.These primarily concern the psychological commitments
and the methodological status of expressivism as well as important
differences and similarities between the approaches of the
'classic' expressivists Ayer, Stevenson, Hare, Blackburn und
Gibbard.
The study of altruism, morality, and social solidarity is an
emerging field of scholarship and research in sociology. This
handbook will function as a foundational source for this subject
matter and field, and as an impetus to its further development.
This collection of essays cuts to the quick of the most pressing
moral issues facing decision-makers today, from the actions of
ordinary soldiers in a combat zone to presidents deciding when and
where to use force. Ethics lie at the heart of human and therefore
also international affairs, compelling nations to get involved
"over there" and dedicate resources to intervention or to justify
detachment. The politics and rhetoric of ethics constrain
decision-makers, greatly complicating international situations.
This third edition of Ethics and Statecraft addresses the moral
reasoning behind the art of peacemaking as well as the ethics and
statecraft of conducting war. The coverage ranges from historical
transformations of whole eras of diplomatic and international
history to issues of ethics of bombing and the laws of war.
Specific attention is paid to emerging issues such as armed
humanitarian intervention and sanctions, drone wars, war crimes,
and economic justice. The work is ideally suited for undergraduate
and graduate students of international relations, history,
political science, and ethics. It will also be useful for NGO
officials and military officers struggling with these issues in the
field. General readers will find illumination of highly relevant
historical issues-including Allied bombing of civilians during
World War II-that set precedents for both expansion and limitations
on the laws of war. They will also encounter pressing modern-day
quandaries, such as the conditions that permit or even require
military or humanitarian intervention, and the impact of new
technologies on old moral problems. Provides clear, non-partisan,
and non-ideological scholarly coverage of historical as well as
contemporary moral issues in international affairs Ranges subject
matter from diplomacy, military decision-making, and international
law to humanitarian intervention and the definition and protection
of the basic human rights Presents the collective expertise and
multinational perspectives of an international group of scholars
Expands on work already well received by scholars, educators, and
international practitioners in two earlier editions
This work defends two main theses. First, modern Western
pornographic fiction functions as a self-deceptive vehicle for
sexual or blood-lustful arousal; and second, that its emergence
owes as much to Puritan Protestantism and its inner- or
this-worldly asceticism as does the emergence of modern
rationalized capitalism.
An interdisciplinary collection of comparative essays which look at aspects of the thought of Edwards and Franklin and consider their places in American culture.
"Intelligently addresses several of the most important unresolved
issues and controversies about altruism."
--"The Journal of Politics"
All but buried for most of the twentieth century, the concept of
altruism has re-emerged in this last quarter as a focus of intense
scholarly inquiry and general public interest. In the wake of
increased consciousness of the human potential for destructiveness,
both scholars and the general public are seeking interventions
which will not only inhibit the process, but may in fact chart a
new creative path toward a global community. Largely initiated by a
group of pioneering social psychologists, early questions on
altruism centered on its motivation and development primarily in
the context of contrived laboratory experiments. Although
publications on the topic have been considerable over the last
several years, and now represent the work of representatives from
many disciplines of inquiry, this volume is distinguished from
others in several ways.
"Embracing the Other" emerged primarily as a response to recent
research on an extraordinary manifestation of real-life altruism,
namely to recent studies of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during
World War II. It is the work of a multi-disciplinary and
international group of scholars, including philosophers, social
psychologists, historians, sociologists, and educators, challenging
several prevailing conceptual definitions and motivational sources
of altruism. The book combines both new empirical and historical
research as well as theoretical and philosophical approaches and
includes a lengthy section addressing the practical implications of
current thinking on altruism for society at large. The resultis a
multi-textured work, addressing critical issues in varied
disciplines, while centered on shared themes.
This book is devoted to the welfare of invertebrates, which make up
99% of animal species on earth. Addressing animal welfare, we do
not often think of invertebrates; in fact we seldom consider them
to be deserving of welfare evaluation. And yet we should. Welfare
is a broad concern for any animal that we house, control or utilize
- and we utilize invertebrates a lot. The Authors start with an
emphasis on the values of non-vertebrate animals and discuss the
need for a book on the present topic. The following chapters focus
on specific taxa, tackling questions that are most appropriate to
each one. What is pain in crustaceans, and how might we prevent it?
How do we ensure that octopuses are not bored? What do bees need to
thrive, pollinate our plants and give us honey? Since invertebrates
have distinct personalities and some social animals have group
personalities, how do we consider this? And, as in the European
Union's application of welfare consideration to cephalopods, how do
the practical regulatory issues play out? We have previously
relegated invertebrates to the category 'things' and did not worry
about their treatment. New research suggest that some invertebrates
such as cephalopods and crustaceans can have pain and suffering,
might also have consciousness and awareness. Also, good welfare is
going to mean different things to spiders, bees, corals, etc. This
book is taking animal welfare in a very different direction.
Academics and students of animal welfare science, those who keep
invertebrates for scientific research or in service to the goals of
humans, as well as philosophers will find this work
thought-provoking, instructive and informative.
New scientific and technological developments challenge us to
reconsider our moral world order. This book offers an original
philosophical approach to this issue: it makes a distinctive
contribution to the development of a relational approach to moral
status by re-defining the problem in a social and phenomenological
way.
Media, Markets, and Morals provides an original ethical framework
designed specifically for evaluating ethical issues in the media,
including new media. The authors apply their account of the moral
role of the media, in their dual capacity as information providers
for the public good and as businesses run for profit, to specific
morally problematic practices and question how ethical behavior can
be promoted within the industry. * Brings together experts in the
fields of media studies and media ethics, information ethics, and
professional ethics * Offers an original ethical framework designed
specifically for evaluating ethical issues in the media, including
new media * Builds upon and further develops an innovative
theoretical model for examining and evaluating media corruption and
methods of media anti-corruption previously developed by authors
Spence and Quinn * Discloses and clarifies the inherent ethical
nature of information and its communication to which the media as
providers of information are necessarily committed
This is the first collection of essays in which European and
American philosophers explicitly think out their respective
contributions and identities as environmental thinkers in the
analytic and continental traditions. The American/European, as well
as Analytic/Continental collaboration here bears fruit helpful for
further theorizing and research. The essays group around three
well-defined areas of questioning all focusing on the
amelioration/management of environmentally, historically and
traditionally diminished landscapes. The first part deals with
differences between New World and the Old World perspectives on
nature and landscape restoration in general, the second focuses on
the meaning of ecological restoration of cultural landscapes, and
the third on the meaning of the wolf and of wildness. It does so in
a way that the strengths of each philosophical school-continental
and analytic-comes to the fore in order to supplement the other's
approach. This text is open to educated readers across all
disciplines, particularly those interested in
restoration/adaptation ecology, the cultural construction of place
and landscape, the ongoing conversation about wilderness, the
challenges posed to global environmental change. The text may also
be a gold mine for doctoral students looking for dissertation
projects in environmental philosophy that are inclusive of
continental and analytic traditions. This text is rich in
innovative approaches to the questions they raise that are
reasonably well thought out. The fact that the essays in each
section really do resonate with one another directly is also
intellectually exciting and very helpful in working out the full
dimensions of each question raised in the volume.
Rousseau and Dignity: Art Serving Humanity is a richly illustrated
volume relating a series of events-a photography exhibit, lectures,
commentary, and audience reactions by people ages seven to
ninety-two-held in the name of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
tercentennial in 2012. Drawn together by the unexpected convergence
of a lecture series and art exhibit held in South Bend, Indiana,
and a documentary film that was shot simultaneously in Compiegne,
France, the participants had several goals: to show why Rousseau's
moral philosophy is important for our time; to argue for the
importance of subjective art forms such as photography, video
letters, and autobiography; to reproduce the stunning
photojournalism commissioned by Amnesty International to document
and dignify people who suffer human rights abuses, such as
substandard housing, nationless-ness, and ethnic prejudice; and to
inspire new kinds of intergenerational teaching. The book includes
essays from world-renowned scholars on Jean-Jacques Rousseau; five
chapters by photojournalists, which include fifty-four photographs
from Egypt, India, Macedonia, Mexico, and Nigeria; and notes by
youthful visitors to the exhibit. In the volume's unorthodox
combination of art and text, creation and reflection, the authors
hope to elicit readers' interest in, and commitment to, an engaged
form of public humanities.
This text offers a review of historical traditions of international
ethical and political theory in the light of modern developments in
political philosophy. McCarthy provides a defence of natural law
tradition, and in response to the criticism of natural law that,
along with Kantianism, it is too abstract to produce a substantive
account of justice and rights, constructs an argument for basic,
agency-grounded rights. Through his study, the author attacks
"realism" and the modern "cosmopolitan" theories that have been too
little debated.
Robert Audi here presents an ethical theory that uniquely integrates naturalistic and rationalistic elements. He develops his theory in four areas: moral epistemology, the metaphysics of ethics, moral psychology, and the foundations of ethics. Including both new and published work, he sets forth a moderate intuitionism, clarifies the relation between reason and motivation, constructs a theory of intrinsic value and its place in moral obligation, and presents a sophisticated account of moral justification. The concluding chapter articulates a new normative framework built from both Kantian and intuitionist elements.
Are there things we should value because they are, quite simply,
good? If so, such things might be said to have "absolute goodness."
They would be good simpliciter or full stop - not good for someone,
not good of a kind, but nonetheless good (period). They might also
be called "impersonal values." The reason why we ought to value
such things, if there are any, would merely be the fact that they
are, quite simply, good things. In the twentieth century, G. E.
Moore was the great champion of absolute goodness, but he is not
the only philosopher who posits the existence and importance of
this property.
Against these friends of absolute goodness, Richard Kraut here
builds on the argument he made in What is Good and Why,
demonstrating that goodness is not a reason-giving property - in
fact, there may be no such thing. It is, he holds, an insidious
category of practical thought, because it can be and has been used
to justify what is harmful and condemn what is beneficial.
Impersonal value draws us away from what is good for persons. His
strategy for opposing absolute goodness is to search for domains of
practical reasoning in which it might be thought to be needed, and
this leads him to an examination of a wide variety of moral
phenomena: pleasure, knowledge, beauty, love, cruelty, suicide,
future generations, bio-diversity, killing in self-defense, and the
extinction of our species. Even persons, he proposes, should not be
said to have absolute value. The special importance of human life
rests instead on the great advantages that such lives normally
offer.
"When one reads this, one sees the possibility of real
philosophical progress. If Kraut is right, I'd be wrong to say that
this book is good, period. Or even great, period. But I will say
that, as a work of philosophy, and for those who read it, it is
excellent indeed." --Russ Shafer-Landau, University of
Wisconsin-Madison
The Human Right to Democracy is the first major study to offer a
comprehensive and up-to-date account of the debate. It reconstructs
the relevant positions in that debate, identifies the key points of
disagreement, and proposes an understanding of the human right to
democracy that might form the basis of a wide consensus. The book
rejects the idea of a comprehensive right to democratic
institutions, and instead argues for a minimal "human right to
democracy" which is best understood as an individual's right to
voice. The human right to voice is a right, enjoyed by any
individual independently of his or her place of residence or
nationality, to be heard and supported in cases of severe injustice
that is tolerated or condoned by the political community or polity
of which the individual is a member. By bringing together human
rights discourse and democratic theory, as well as taking into
account practical politics, this study broadens the scope of the
debatefrom a sometimes overly-narrow focus. The book is of interest
not only to political philosophers, but also to international
lawyers, diplomats, representatives of civil society, human rights
activists, and specialists in development economics.
"Democracy and Education" is one of John Dewey's most famous
classical works and is a landmark of progressive theory. He drove
hard to develop strategies and methods for training students for
social responsibility. Dewey is not only a giant of modern
educational theory but of progressive humanitarian thought. He
believed that democracy was both a means and an end to building a
just society. In "Freedom and Culture" Dewey believed that
humankind could keep a firm grip on it's destiny only if critical
intelligence of the scientific method and it's democratic
counterpart were emphasized and promoted. Freedom of inquiry,
speech, cultural pluralism and a willingness to co-operate in the
pursuit of shared values and ideals would be the springboard for
social development. A Collector's Edition.
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