Recent Western thought has consistently emphasized the individualistic strand in our understanding of persons at the expense of the social strand. Thus, it is generally thought that persons are self-determining and autonomous, where these are understood to be capacities we exercise most fully on our own, apart from others, whose influence on us tends to undermine that autonomy. Love, Friendship, and the Self argues that we must reject a strongly individualistic conception of persons if we are to make sense of significant interpersonal relationships and the importance they can have in our lives. It presents a new account of love as intimate identification and of friendship as a kind of plural agency, in each case grounding and analyzing these notions in terms of interpersonal emotions. At the center of this account is an analysis of how our emotional connectedness with others is essential to our very capacities for autonomy and self-determination: we are rational and autonomous only because of and through our inherently social nature. By focusing on the role that relationships of love and friendship have both in the initial formation of our selves and in the on-going development and maturation of adult persons, Helm significantly alters our understanding of persons and the kind of psychology we persons have as moral and social beings.

Most people think that the difficulty of balancing career and personal/family relationships is the fault of present-day society or is due to their own inadequacies. But in this major new book, eminent moral philosopher Michael Slote argues that the difficulty runs much deeper, that it is due to the essential nature of the divergent goods involved in this kind of choice. He shows more generally that perfect human happiness and perfect virtue are impossible in principle, a view originally enunciated by Isaiah Berlin, but much more thoroughly and synoptically defended here than ever before.
Ancient Greek and modern-day Enlightenment thought typically assumed that perfection was possible, and this is also true of Romanticism and of most recent ethical theory. But if, as Slote maintains, imperfection is inevitable, then our inherited categories of virtue and personal good are far too limited and unqualified to allow us to understand and cope with the richer and more complex life that characterizes today's world. And The Impossibility of Perfection argues in particular that we need some new notions, new distinctions, and even new philosophical methods in order to distill some of the ethical insights of recent feminist thought and arrive at a fuller and more realistic picture of ethical phenomena.

Revenge has been a subject of concern in most intellectual traditions throughout history, and even when social norms regard it as permissible or even obligatory, it is commonly recognised as being more counterproductive than beneficial. In this book, Kit R. Christensen explores this provocative issue, offering an in-depth account of both the nature of revenge and the causes and consequences of the desire for this kind of retaliatory violence. He then develops a version of eudaimonistic consequentialism to argue that vengeance is never morally justified, and applies this to cases of intergroup violence where the lust for revenge against a vilified 'Them' is easily incited and often exploited. His study will interest a wide range of readers in moral philosophy as well as social philosophers, legal theorists, and social/behavioural scientists.

Abortion is the most divisive issue in America's culture wars, seemingly creating a clear division between conservative members of the Religious Right and people who align themselves with socially and politically liberal causes. In Defenders of the Unborn, historian Daniel K. Williams complicates this perspective by offering a detailed, engagingly written narrative of the pro-life movement's mid-twentieth-century origins. He explains that the movement began long before Roe v. Wade, and traces its fifty-year history to explain how and why abortion politics have continued to polarize the nation up to the present day. As this book shows, the pro-life movement developed not because of a backlash against women's rights, the sexual revolution, or the power of the Supreme Court, but because of an anxiety that devout Catholics-as well as Orthodox Jews, liberal Protestants, and others not commonly associated with the movement-had about living in a society in which the "inalienable" right to life was no longer protected in public law. As members of a movement grounded in the liberal human rights tradition of the 1960s, pro-lifers were winning the political debate on abortion policy up until the decision in Roe v.Wade deprived them of victory and forced them to ally with political conservatives, a move that eventually required a compromise of some of their core values. Defenders of the Unborn draws from a wide range of previously unexamined archival sources to offer a new portrayal of the pro-life movement that will surprise people on both sides of the abortion debate.

This book situates Ralph Waldo Emerson in the tradition of philosophy as "spiritual exercise", arguing that the defining feature of his literary philosophy is the conviction that there is an inherent link between moral persuasion and literary excellence. Hosseini persuasively argues that the Emersonian project can be viewed as an extension of Socrates' call for a return to the beginning of philosophy, to search for a way of revolutionizing our ways of seeing from within. Examining Emerson's provocative style of writing, Hosseini contends that his prose is shaped by a desire to bring about psychagogia, or influencing the soul through the power of words. This book furthermore examines the evolving nature of Emerson's thoughts on "scholarly action" and its implications, his religious temperament as an aesthetic experience of the world through wonder, and the reasons for a resounding acknowledgment of despair in his essay "Experience." In the concluding chapter, Hosseini explores the depth of Emerson's engagement with the classical Persian poets and argues that what we may call his "literary humanism" is informed by Persian Adab, exemplified in the writings of Rumi, Hafiz, and Saadi. Weaving together themes from Persian philosophy and Emersonian transcendentalism, Hosseini establishes Emerson's way of seeing as refreshingly relevant, showing that the questions he tackled in his writings are as pressing today as they were in his time.

R.M. Hare was one of the most important ethical theorists of the 20th century, and one of his graduate students, Peter Singer, became famous for his writings on animals and personhood. Singer now says that he endorses Hare's "two-level utilitarianism," and he has invoked the theory's distinction between "critical thinking" and thinking in terms of "intuitive level rules" in response to certain objections to his conclusions on several issues. Hare, however, never published a systematic treatment of how his theory applies to issues in animal ethics, and he avoided the concept of "personhood." Gary Varner here fills this gap by defending the moral legitimacy of distinguishing among "persons," "near-persons," and "the merely sentient" within Harean two-level utilitarianism. He explores the implications of this distinction by applying the resulting ethical system to our treatment of animals, and shows how the results contrast with the more abolitionist conclusions reached by Singer on the same issues. In the process, he presents a new philosophical defense of two-level utilitarianism and its metaethical foundation (universal prescriptivism), and he significantly expands Hare's account of how "intuitive level rules" function in moral thinking, based on recent empirical research. The book also draws heavily on empirical research on consciousness and cognition in non-human animals as a way of approaching the question of which animals, if any, are "persons," or at least "near-persons. Philosophers, including those interested in utilitarianism in general or Hare in particular, as well as others interested in animal ethics or the debate over personhood, will find Varner's argument of great interest. "Professor Varner's earlier work, In Nature's Interests, is a very fine book. It has achieved a high level of respect from those working in the field, and is often seen as having set a new standard of debate in environmental ethics. That means that a new book by Professor Varner will be received with considerable interest. Varner draws on extensive recent empirical research regarding the degree to which animals are self-conscious and uses this information as the basis for the most serious discussion I have yet seen of whether any nonhuman animals can be considered 'persons'. There is, to my knowledge, no other book that goes into these issues anywhere near as deeply, in the context of assessing their significance for the normative issues of the wrongness of taking life, or other issues relating to ethical decision-making regarding our treatment of animals and some humans. I have no doubt that this book will, like In Nature's Interests, be seen as making an important contribution to the topics it covers." - Peter Singer, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University

This is the first comparative study of the work of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur and the psychoanalayst Jacques Lacan. The book explores the conflict between the two thinkers that arose from their differing views of ethics: Ricoeur's universalist stance drew on a phenomenological reading of Kant, whereas Lacan's was a relativist position, derived from a psychoanalytic reading of Freud and De Sade. "Ricoeur and Lacan" gives a full critical overview of the work of both figures, tracing the origins and development of their principal ideas, and identifying key similarities and differences. The book identifies and explores the key philosophical influences upon their work: Descartes; Kant; Nietzsche; Husserl; Freud; Marcel; and Jaspers. It gives an original perspective upon the development of ethics within Continental philosophy, providing clear and cogent analysis. Finally, it evaluates the importance of Ricoeur and Lacan in the development of ethical and political theory since the 1980s, with particular reference to the work of Slavoj Zizek. Not only a valuable and original addition to the literature on two major thinkers, "Ricoeur and Lacan" is also an important study of contemporary Continental ethics.

Hans Jonas (1903-1993) was one of the most important German-Jewish philosophers of the 20th century. A student of Martin Heidegger and close friend of Hannah Arendt, Jonas advanced the fields of phenomenology and practical ethics in ways that are just beginning to be appreciated in the English-speaking world. Drawing here on unpublished and newly translated material, Lewis Coyne brings together for the first time in English Jonas's philosophy of life, ethic of responsibility, political theory, philosophy of technology and bioethics. In Hans Jonas: Life, Technology and the Horizons of Responsibility, Coyne argues that the aim of Jonas's philosophy is to confront three critical issues inherent to modernity: nihilism, the ecological crisis and the transhumanist drive to biotechnologically enhance human beings. While these might at first appear disparate, for Jonas all follow from the materialist turn taken by Western thought from the 17th century onwards, and he therefore seeks to tackle all three issues at their collective point of origin. This book explores how Jonas develops a new categorical imperative of responsibility on the basis of an ontology that does justice to the purposefulness and dignity of life: to act in a way that does not compromise the future of humanity on earth. Reflecting on this, as we face a potential future of ecological and societal collapse, Coyne forcefully demonstrates the urgency of Jonas's demand that humanity accept its newfound responsibility as the 'shepherd of beings'.

"The New Space: Genesis and Background, " author Bahman Bazargani considers the idea that the quasi-aesthetic focus of attraction of the polytheistic era was the brave hero. This quasi-aesthetic focus of attraction overshadows all the other parameters of that paradigm. Liberty in that paradigm meant the liberty of moving in these dimensions. In contrast, during the monotheistic paradigm, the meaning of liberty was drastically changed and overshadowed by the quasi-aesthetic focus of attraction of that paradigm that is by the eternity/other world.

Barzagani further strives to show that the era of reason was somehow an autocratic era that had a great impression upon the modern time while it was philosophically more tolerant to the two centuries before. Throughout "The New Space: Genesis and Background, " he examines the changes that the concept of liberty experiences from the classic teachings to the present and the new quasi-aesthetic focus of attraction, which as a metavalue and the "true" meaning of life overshadows all the other social values. He posits that although there is a consensus that liberty us the meaning of life, but that there is no consensus on the meaning of liberty.

Finally, Bazargani comes to the conclusion that horizontal respect is a new principle that can be the new quasi-aesthetic focus of attraction and a metavalue that would overshadow all the social values even liberty itself-the beginning of the new space, pluralist mega space.

Most contemporary moral and political philosophers would like to have an argument showing that morality is rationally required. In From Rationality to Equality, James P. Sterba provides just such an argument and further shows that morality, so justified, requires substantial equality. His argument from rationality to morality is based on the principle of non-question-beggingness and has two forms. The first assumes that the egoist is willing to argue for egoism non-question-beggingly, and the second only assumes that the egoist is willing to assent to premises she actually needs to achieve her egoistic goals. Either way, he argues, morality is rationally (i.e., non-question-beggingly) preferable to egoism. Sterba's argument from morality to equality non-question-beggingly starts with assumptions that are acceptable from a libertarian perspective, the view that appears to endorse the least enforcement of morality, and then shows that this perspective requires a right to welfare which, when extended to distant peoples and future generations, leads to equality. He defends his two-part argument against recent critics, and shows how it is preferable not only to alternative attempts to justify morality, but also to alternative attempts to show that morality leads to a right to welfare and/or to equality.

What are our duties or rights? How should we act? What are we responsible for? How do we determine the answers to these questions? Joseph Raz examines and explains the philosophical issues underlying these everyday quandaries. He explores the nature of normativity--namely, the fact that we believe and feel we should behave in certain ways, the reasoning behind certain beliefs and emotions, and various basic features of making decisions about what to do. He goes on to consider when we are responsible for our actions and omissions, and offers a novel account of responsibility. We can think of responsibility for unjustified actions or attitudes as a precondition of the blameworthiness of a person for an attitude or an action, or perhaps for a whole set of actions, intentions, or beliefs. Responsibility for justified actions or attitudes may be a precondition of praiseworthiness. Either way responsibility may point to further consequences of being justified or unjustified, rational or not. But crucially, responsibility attaches to people in a more holistic way. Some people are responsible for their actions, while others are not. In this way, Raz argues that the end is in the beginning, in understanding how people are subject to normativity, namely how it is that there are reasons addressed to them, and what is the meaning of that for our being in the world.

"This is an outstanding contribution to both libertarian political philosophy and communication theory. It is far and away the most comprehensive work on communication issues in libertarian theory ever published. The author has integrated successfully the libertarian insights of Mises, Rothbard, Block, Kinsella and others with the philosophy of language as developed by Austin, Searle and Grice. He has done so in a unique and unprecedented way. The book would appeal to students and scholars interested in libertarian theory and more generally, to philosophers and political scientists interested in high-level scholarship." - David Gordon, libertarian philosopher and intellectual historian, Ludwig von Mises Institute.

The Heart is the meeting place of the individual and the divine, the inner ground of morality, authenticity, and integrity. The process of coming to the Heart and of realizing the person we were meant to be is what Carl Jung called 'Individuation'. This path is full of moral challenges for anyone with the courage to take it. Using Jung's premise that the main causes of psychological problems are conflicts of conscience, Christina Becker takes the reader through the philosophical and spiritual aspects of the ethical dimensions of this individual journey toward wholeness. This book is a long overdue and unique contribution to the link between individuation and ethics. Christina Becker, M.B.A. is a Zurich-trained Jungian Analyst in private practice in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

Antonia Lolordo presents an original interpretation of John Locke's conception of moral agency-one that has implications both for his metaphysics and for the foundations of his political theory. Locke denies that species boundaries exist independently of human convention, holds that the human mind may be either an immaterial substance or a material one to which God has superadded the power of thought, and insists that animals possess the ability to perceive, will, and even reason-indeed, in some cases to reason better than humans. Thus, he eliminates any sharp distinction between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. However, in his ethical and political work Locke assumes that there is a sharp distinction between moral agents and other beings. He thus needs to be able to delineate the set of moral agents precisely, without relying on the sort of metaphysical and physical facts his predecessors appealed to. Lolordo argues that for Locke, to be a moral agent is simply to be free, rational, and a person. Interpreting the Lockean metaphysics of moral agency in this way helps us to understand both Locke's over-arching philosophical project and the details of his accounts of liberty, personhood, and rationality.

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.

Torture has recently been the subject of some sensational headlines. As a result, there has been a huge surge in interest in the ethical implications of this contentious issue.
"The Ethics of Torture" offers the first complete introduction to the philosophical debates surrounding torture. The book asks key questions in light of recent events such as the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib. What makes torture morally reprehensible? Are there any conditions under which torture is acceptable? What is it like to be tortured, and why do people engage in torture?
The authors argue that the force of the most common arguments for torture (like the ticking-bomb argument) are significantly overestimated, while the wrongness of torture has been significantly underestimated--even by those who argue against it.
This is the ideal introduction to the ethics of torture for students of moral philosophy or political theory. It also constitutes a significant contribution to the torture debate in its own right, presenting a unique approach to investigating this dark practice.