In this book Tobias Hoffmann studies the medieval free will debate during its liveliest period, from the 1220s to the 1320s, and clarifies its background in Aristotle, Augustine, and earlier medieval thinkers. Among the wide range of authors he examines are not only well-known thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham, but also a number of authors who were just as important in their time and deserve to be rediscovered today. To shed further light on their theories of free will, Hoffmann also explores their competing philosophical explanations of the fall of the angels, that is, the hypothesis of an evil choice made by rational beings under optimal psychological conditions. As he shows, this test case imposed limits on tracing free choices to cognition. His book provides a comprehensive account of a debate that was central to medieval philosophy and continues to occupy philosophers today.

Plato often rejects hedonism, but in the Protagoras, Plato's Socrates seems to endorse hedonism. In this book, J. Clerk Shaw removes this apparent tension by arguing that the Protagoras as a whole actually reflects Plato's anti-hedonism. He shows that Plato places hedonism at the core of a complex of popular mistakes about value and especially about virtue: that injustice can be prudent, that wisdom is weak, that courage is the capacity to persevere through fear, and that virtue cannot be taught. The masses reproduce this system of values through shame and fear of punishment. The Protagoras and other dialogues depict sophists and orators who have internalized popular morality through shame, but who are also ashamed to state their views openly. Shaw's reading not only reconciles the Protagoras with Plato's other dialogues, but harmonizes it with them and even illuminates Plato's wider anti-hedonism.

Long before it became fashionable to talk of climate change, drought and water shortages, the authors of this lucid and trenchant dialogue were warning that planet earth was heading for uninhabitability. They exchange viewpoints and insights that have matured over many years of thought, study and reflection. One of the authors is a Westerner--a man of many parts, both wartime resistance fighter and leading industrialist, who founded one of the first think tanks to address seriously the human prospects for global survival. The other represents the philosophical and ethical perspectives of the East--a Buddhist leader who has visited country after country, campaigning tirelessly for the abolition of nuclear weapons and war in all its forms. Engaging constructively and imaginatively with such seemingly intractable problems as population growth, the decline of natural resources, desertification, pollution and deforestation, Ikeda and Peccei show that many of these problems are interrelated. Only be addressing them as part of a web of complex but combined issues, and by working together for peace and justice, can human beings expect to find lasting solutions. The best prospect for the future lies in an ethical revolution whereby humanity can find a fresh understanding of itself in holistic connection with, rather than separation and alienation from, the planet itself.

Buddhism has played a significant role in the current global rise in religious nationalism and violence, but the violent aspects of Buddhist tradition have been neglected in the outpouring of academic analyses and case studies of this disturbing trend. This book offers eight essays examining the dark side of a tradition often regarded as the religion of peace. The authors note the conflict between the Buddhist norms of non-violence and the prohibition of the killing of sentient beings and acts of state violence supported by the Buddhist community (sangha), acts of civil violence in which monks participate, and Buddhist intersectarian violence. They consider contemporary and historical cases of Buddhist warfare from a wide range of traditions - Tibetan, Mongolian, Japanese, Chinese, Sri Lankan, and Thai - critically examining both Buddhist textual sources justifying violence and Buddhist actors currently engaged in violence. They draw not only on archival material but interviews with those living and involved in war zones around the world. The book enriches our understanding both of the complexities of the Buddhist tradition and of the violence that is found in virtually all of the world's religious traditions.

How do we see and act justly in the world? In what ways can we ethically respond to social and economic crisis? How do we address the desperation that exists in the new forms of violence and atrocity? These are all questions at the heart of Justice and Love, a philosophical dialogue on how to imagine and act in a more just world by theologian Rowan Williams and philosopher Mary Zournazi. Looking at different religious and philosophical traditions, Williams and Zournazi argue for the re-invigoration and enriching of the language of justice and, by situating justice alongside other virtues, they extend our everyday vocabularies on what is just. Drawing on examples ranging from the Paris Attacks, the Syrian War, and the European Migrant Crisis to Brexit and the US Presidential elections, Williams and Zournazi reflect on justice as a process: a condition of being, a responsiveness to others, rather than a cold distribution of fact. By doing so, they explore the love and patience needed for social healing and the imagination required for new ways of relating and experiencing the world.

Selfhood and Sacrifice is an original exploration of the ideas of two major contemporary thinkers. O'Shea offers a novel interpretation of Girard's work that opens up his discourse on violence and the sacred into a fruitful engagement with both Taylor's philosophical anthropology and his philosophical history. In an age when religious violence and the role of practical reason in the secular sphere are continually juxtaposed, O'Shea offers new possibilities of responding to the problems of global crisis through the critical lenses of two of the most original and engaging thinkers writing on religion today.

Engineering Ethics is the application of philosophical and moral systems to the proper judgment and behavior by engineers in conducting their work, including the products and systems they design and the consulting services they provide. In light of the work environment that inspired the new Sarbanes/Oxley federal legislation on whistle-blowing protections, a clear understanding of Engineering Ethics is needed like never before.
Beginning with a concise overview of various approaches to engineering ethics, the real heart of the book will be some 13 detailed case studies, delving into the history behind each one, the official outcome and the real story behind what happened. Using a consistent format and organization for each one giving background, historical summary, news media effects, outcome and interpretation--these case histories will be used to clearly illustrate the ethics issues at play and what should or should not have been done by the engineers, scientists and managers involved in each instance.
* Covers importance and practical benefits of systematic ethical behavior in any engineering work environment.
* Only book to explain implications of the Sarbanes/Oxley "Whistle-Blowing" federal legislation
* 13 actual case histories, plus 10 additional "anonymous" case histories-in consistent format-will clearly demonstrate the relevance of ethics in the outcomes of each one
* Offers actual investigative reports, with evidentiary material, legal proceedings, outcome and follow-up analysis
* Appendix offers copies of the National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics for Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Code of Ethics"

The concept of causation is fundamental to ascribing moral and legal responsibility for events. Yet the relationship between causation and responsibility remains unclear. What precisely is the connection between the concept of causation used in attributing responsibility and the accounts of causal relations offered in the philosophy of science and metaphysics? How much of what we call causal responsibility is in truth defined by non-causal factors? This book argues that much of the legal doctrine on these questions is confused and incoherent, and offers the first comprehensive attempt since Hart and Honore to clarify the philosophical background to the legal and moral debates.
The book first sets out the place of causation in criminal and tort law and then outlines the metaphysics presupposed by the legal doctrine. It then analyses the best theoretical accounts of causation in the philosophy of science and metaphysics, and using these accounts criticizes many of the core legal concepts surrounding causation - such as intervening causation, forseeability of harm and complicity. It considers and rejects the radical proposals to eliminate the notion of causation from law by using risk analysis to attribute responsibility. The result of the analysis is a powerful argument for revising our understanding of the role played by causation in the attribution of legal and moral responsibility.

From lesson-planning to instructional practice to classroom management, teachers must make choices constantly and consistently. Somtimes these decisions are easy, but there are some decisions that are very difficult. Such delicate decisions often arise in the world of education and may be detrimental to one's career. Thoughtful decision-making should be part of every educator's daily experience. In Tough Choices for Teachers: Ethical Challenges in Today's Schools and Classrooms, Infantino and Wilke help student teachers, new teachers, and experienced teachers think more deeply about ethical concerns. The case studies included by the authors involve ethical dilemmas dealing with honesty, integrity, and proper professional behavior. Thinking through these scenarios based in actual situations, educators are trained in ethical decision-making processes and necessary skils for dealing with problems that arise in KD12 schooling.

Everyone wants to be virtuous, but recent psychological investigations suggest that this may not be possible. Mark Alfano challenges this theory and asks, not whether character is empirically adequate, but what characters human beings could have and develop. Although psychology suggests that most people do not have robust character traits such as courage, honesty and open-mindedness, Alfano argues that we have reason to attribute these virtues to people because such attributions function as self-fulfilling prophecies - children become more studious if they are told that they are hard-working and adults become more generous if they are told that they are generous. He argues that we should think of virtue and character as social constructs: there is no such thing as virtue without social reinforcement. His original and provocative book will interest a wide range of readers in contemporary ethics, epistemology, moral psychology and empirically informed philosophy.

By bringing together the insights of ecclesial ethics, an approach that emphasizes the distinctive nature of the church as the community that forms its mind and character after its reading of Scripture, with the theory and practice of restorative justice, a way of conceiving justice-making that emerged from the Mennonite-Anabaptist tradition, this book shows why a theological account of the theory and practice of restorative justice is fruitful for articulating and clarifying the witness of the church, especially when faced with conflict or wrongdoing. This can help extend the church's imagination as to how it might better become God's community of restoration as it reflects on the ways in which the justice of God is taking shape in its own community. "How does an ecclesial context shape the theological apprehension and praxis of justice?" This question orientates the book. In particular, it asks how, in view of its members having been admitted into God's restoring justice in Christ, the church might embody in the world this same justice of restoring right relationships. While Christian reflection on the nature of justice has tended to favour a judicial and retributive conception of justice, it will be argued that the biblical understanding of the justice of God is best understood as a saving, liberating, and restorative justice. It is this restorative conception that ought to guide the community that reads Scripture so that it might be embodied in life.

Three decades of dizzying change in China's economy and society have left a tangible record of successes and failures. Less readily accessible but of no less consequence is the story, as illuminated in this book, of what China's reform has done to its people as moral and spiritual beings. Jiwei Ci examines the moral crisis in post-Mao China as a mirror of deep contradictions in the new self as well as in society. He seeks to show that lack of freedom, understood as the moral and political conditions for subjectivity under modern conditions of life, lies at the root of these contradictions, just as enhanced freedom offers the only appropriate escape from them. Rather than a ready-made answer, however, freedom is treated throughout as a pressing question in China's search for a better moral and political culture.

Most people intuitively understand the nature of morality; this tends to belie the fact that morality is more complex, controversial and interesting than generally appreciated. This book provides a comprehensive overview of morality from various disciplines and perspectives. These include ethics and evolution, moral psychology, morality and culture, morality and religion and morality and the law. A chapter on evil illustrates the vulnerability of morality. The book also provides a description and critique of various ethical theories, the difference between a moral obligation and a moral ideal and the views of venerable moral philosophers who argue over issues such as whether objective moral truth exists. A number of practical ethical dilemmas are discussed. The book is written in language accessible to the general reader and will be of interest to members of organizational, governmental, and professional ethics committees, students in ethics fellowships or ethics degree programs, philosophers, and others who want to learn more about morality.

Issues concerning the upbringing of children are among the most contested in modern political debate. How should childrearing rights and resources be distributed between families? To what extent are parents morally permitted to shape the beliefs and desires of their children? At what age should children acquire adult rights, such as the right to vote? Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing sets out a liberal conception of political morality that supports a set of answers to these questions which many liberals have been reluctant to accept. The central argument is that the ideals of justice and individual autonomy place significant constraints on both governments and parents. Clayton insists that while their interests should count directly in allocating childrearing rights, parents should exercise their rights in accordance with these liberal ideals. He argues that we owe our children a childhood that develops their sense of justice, but in which further attempts to enrol them into particular religious practices, for instance, are illegitimate. Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing is a work of applied political philosophy that will be of interest to students of political theory, the philosophy of education, and social and public policy.

Is prostitution immoral? In this book, Rob Lovering argues that it is not. Offering a careful and thorough critique of the many-twenty, to be exact-arguments for prostitution's immorality, Lovering leaves no claim unchallenged. Drawing on the relevant literature along with his own creative thinking, Lovering offers a clear and reasoned moral defense of the world's oldest profession. Lovering demonstrates convincingly, on both consequentialist and nonconsequentialist grounds, that there is nothing immoral about prostitution between consenting adults. The legal implications of this view are also brought to bear on the current discourse surrounding this controversial topic.

In the modern era each new innovation poses its own special ethical dilemma. How can human society adapt to these new forms of expression, commerce, government, citizenship, and learning while holding onto its ethical and moral principles? Ethical Impact of Technological Advancements and Applications in Society explores the ethical challenges of these innovations, providing cutting-edge analysis of designs, developments, impacts, policies, theories, and methodologies related to ethical aspects of technology in society. It advances scholarship on both in established areas such as computer ethics, engineering ethics, and biotech ethics as well as nascent areas of research such as nanoethics, artificial morality, and neuroethics.

Explores the full range of issues - moral, ethical, social, legal, and technological - involved in developing firm controls and best practices to secure the ever growing information infrastructure upon which societies and individuals depend.

The Continuum Companion to Ethics offers the definitive guide to a key area of contemporary philosophy. The book covers all the fundamental questions asked by meta-ethics and normative ethical theory. Fourteen specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts reveal where important work continues to be done in the field and, most valuably, the exciting new directions the field is taking. The Companion explores issues pertaining to moral methodology, moral realism, ethical expressivism, constructivism and the error theory, morality and practical reason, moral psychology, morality and religion, consequentialism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, feminist ethics, moral particularism, experimental ethics, and biology, evolution, and ethics. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools, including important technical terms in ethics, a historical chronology, an extensive overview of contemporary meta-ethics and normative ethical theory, a detailed list of internet resources for research in ethics, and a thorough list of recommended works for further study, this is the essential reference tool for anyone working in contemporary philosophical ethics. >