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Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy
Consisting of an assortment of landmark essays and the best in
contemporary scholarship, this anthology delves deeply into the
most pressing environmental issues of our times. Articles included
in this anthology are distinguished for their relevance to
real-life policy making and for their ability to promote rich and
lively discussion about controversial matters. In addition, the
editors' careful organization of the topics and illuminating
section previews keep students focused on the most essential points
of current environmental debates.
The second edition of Media ethics in the South African context
explores the dynamic and potentially explosive field of media
ethics from a South African perspective. Grounded in ethical
theory, the public philosophies of communication and media
performance norms, this text provides guidelines for the
individual's ethical decision making; for both media practitioners
and media groups. Cutting edge analysis of the South African
normative context under the previous and present political
dispensations makes this book essential reading for media policy
formulators and students alike. Changes in the normative context
are presenting the South African news media in particular, with new
challenges.
David Boonin presents a new account of the non-identity problem: a
puzzle about our obligations to people who do not yet exist. Our
actions sometimes have an effect not only on the quality of life
that people will enjoy in the future, but on which particular
people will exist in the future to enjoy it. In cases where this is
so, the combination of certain assumptions that most people seem to
accept can yield conclusions that most people seem to reject. The
non-identity problem has important implications both for ethical
theory and for a number of topics in applied ethics, including
controversial issues in bioethics, environmental ethics and
disability ethics. It has been the subject of a great deal of
discussion for nearly four decades, but this is the first
book-length study devoted exclusively to its examination. Boonin
begins by explaining what the problem is, why the problem matters,
and what criteria a solution to the problem must satisfy in order
to count as a successful one. He then provides a critical survey of
the solutions to the problem that have thus far been proposed in
the sizeable literature that the problem has generated and
concludes by developing and defending an unorthodox alternative
solution, one that differs fundamentally from virtually every other
available approach.
We must all make choices about how we want to live. We evaluate our
possibilities by relying on historical, moral, personal, political,
religious, and scientific modes of evaluations, but the values and
reasons that follow from them conflict. Philosophical problems are
forced on us when we try to cope with such conflicts. There are
reasons for and against all proposed ways of coping with the
conflicts, but none of them has been generally accepted by
reasonable thinkers. The constructive aim of The Nature of
Philosophical Problems is to propose a way of understanding the
nature of such philosophical problems, explain why they occur, why
they are perennial, and propose a pluralist approach as the most
reasonable way of coping with them. This approach is practical,
context-dependent, and particular. It follows from it that the
recurrence of philosophical problems is not a defect, but a welcome
consequence of the richness of our modes of understanding that
enlarges the range of possibilities by which we might choose to
live. The critical aim of the book is to give reasons against both
the absolutist attempt to find an overriding value or principle for
resolving philosophical problems and of the relativist claim that
reasons unavoidably come to an end and how we want to live is
ultimately a matter of personal preference, not of reasons.
The authors of this book argue that there is a great divide between
species that makes extrapolation of biochemical research from one
group to another utterly invalid. In their previous book, "Sacred
Cows and Golden Geese: The Human Cost of Experiments on Animals",
the Greeks showed how an amorphous but insidious network of drug
manufacturers, researchers dependent on government grants to earn
their living, even cage-manufacurers - among others benefiting from
"white-coat welfare" - have perpetuated animal research in spite of
its total unpredictability when applied to humans. (Cancer in mice,
for example, has long been cured. Chimps live long and relatively
healthy lives with AIDS. There is no animal form of Alzheimer's
disease.) In doing so, the Greeks aimed to blow the lid off the
"specious science" we have been culturally conditioned to accept.
Taking these revelations one step further, this book uses
accessible language to provide the scientific underpinning for the
Greeks' philosophy of "do no harm to any animal, human or not," by
examining paediatrics, diseases of the brain, new surgical
techniques, in vitro research, the Human Genome and Proteome
Projects, an array of scien
Christine Swanton offers a new, comprehensive theory of virtue ethics which addresses the major concerns of modern ethical theory from a character-based perspective. The book departs in significant ways from classical virtue ethics and neo-Aristotelianism, employing insights from Nietzsche and other sources, resulting in a highly distinctive and original brand of virtue ethics.
A milestone in the history of popular theology, 'The Screwtape
Letters' is an iconic classic on spiritual warfare and the power of
the devil. This profound and striking narrative takes the form of a
series of letters from Screwtape, a devil high in the Infernal
Civil Service, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior colleague engaged
in his first mission on earth trying to secure the damnation of a
young man who has just become a Christian. Although the young man
initially looks to be a willing victim, he changes his ways and is
'lost' to the young devil. Dedicated to Lewis's friend and
colleague J.R.R. Tolkien, 'The Screwtape Letters' is a timeless
classic on spiritual conflict and the invisible realities which are
part of our religious experience.
When is it right to go to war? The most persuasive answer to this question has always been 'in self-defense'. In a penetrating new analysis, bringing together moral philosophy, political science, and law, David Rodin shows what's wrong with this answer. He proposes a comprehensive new theory of the right of self-defense which resolves many of the perplexing questions that have dogged both jurists and philosophers.
C. C. W. Taylor presents a clear and faithful new translation of
one of the most famous and influential texts in the history of
Western thought, accompanied by an analytical and critical
commentary focusing on philosophical issues. In Books II to IV of
the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle gives
his account of virtue of character, which is central to his ethical
theory as a whole and a key topic in much modern ethical writing.
The Right and the Good, a classic of twentieth-century philosophy
by the eminent scholar Sir David Ross, is now presented in a new
edition with a substantial introduction by Philip Stratton-Lake, a
leading expert on Ross. Ross's book is the pinnacle of ethical
intuitionism, which was the dominant moral theory in British
philosophy for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Intuitionism is now enjoying a considerable revival, and
Stratton-Lake provides the context for a proper understanding of
Ross's great work today.
Thomas Hill presents a set of essays exploring the implications of
basic Kantian ideas for practical issues. The first part of the
book provides background in central themes in Kant's ethics; the
second part discusses questions regarding human welfare; the third
focuses on moral worth - the nature and grounds of moral assessment
of persons as deserving esteem or blame. Hill shows moral,
political and social philosophers just how valuable moral theory
can be in addressing practical matters.
In ancient Rome parents would consult the priestess Carmentis
shortly after birth to obtain prophecies of the future of their
newborn infant. Today, parents and doctors of critically ill
children consult a different oracle. Neuroimaging provides a vision
of the child's future, particularly of the nature and severity of
any disability. Based on the results of brain scans and other tests
doctors and parents face heart-breaking decisions about whether or
not to continue intensive treatment or to allow the child to die.
Paediatrician and ethicist Dominic Wilkinson looks at the profound
and contentious ethical issues facing those who work in intensive
care caring for critically ill children and infants. When should
infants or children be allowed to die? How accurate are predictions
of future quality of life? How much say should parents have in
these decisions? How should they deal with uncertainty about the
future? He combines philosophy, medicine and science to shed light
on current and future dilemmas.
This is a reissue, with new introduction, of Susan Sauve Meyer's
1993 book, in which she presents a comprehensive examination of
Aristotle's accounts of voluntariness in the Eudemian and
Nicomachean Ethics. She makes the case that these constitute a
theory of moral responsibility--albeit one with important
differences from modern theories.
Highlights of the discussion include a reconstruction of the
dialectical argument in the Eudemian Ethics II 6-9, and a
demonstration that the definitions of 'voluntary' and 'involuntary'
in Nicomachean Ethics III 1 are the culmination of that argument.
By identifying the paradigms of voluntariness and involuntariness
that Aristotle begins with and the opponents (most notably Plato)
he addresses, Meyer explains notoriously puzzling features of the
Nicomachean account--such as Aristotle's requirement that
involuntary agents experience pain or regret. Other familiar
features of Aristotle's account are cast in a new light. That we
are responsible for the characters we develop turns out not to be a
necessary condition of responsible agency. That voluntary action
has its "origin" in the agent and that our actions are "up to us to
do and not to so"--often interpreted as implying a libertarian
conception of agency--turn out to be perfectly compatible with
causal determinism, a point Meyer makes by locating these locutions
in the context of a Aristotle's general understanding of causality.
While Aristotle does not himself face or address worries that
determinism is incompatible with responsibility, his causal
repertoire provides the resources for a powerful response to
incompatibilist arguments. On this and other fronts Aristotle's is
a view to be taken seriously by theorists of moral responsibility.
This book offers a fresh and up-to-date account of the ethical
thought of one of the twentieth century's greatest theologians:
Karl Barth. In it, the author seeks to recover Barth's ethics from
some widespread misunderstandings, and also presents a picture of
it as a whole. Drawing on recently published sources, Dr Biggar
construes the ethics of the Church Dogmatics as it might have been
had Barth lived to complete it. However, The Hastening that Waits
is more than apology and description. For it recommends to
contemporary Christian ethics the theological rigour with which
Barth expounds the good life in terms of the living presence of
God-in-Christ to his creatures; his conception of right human
action as that which is able to hasten in the service of humanity
precisely by waiting prayerfully upon God; and his discriminate
openness to moral wisdom outside the Christian church. Among
particular topics treated are: the concept of human freedom and of
created moral order; moral norms and their relation to individual
vocation; the relative ethical roles of the Bible, the Church,
philosophy, and empirical science; moral character and its
formation; and the problem of war.
In this study, Clare Palmer challenges the popular conception that
process thinking offers an unambiguously positive contribution to
the philosophical debate on environmental ethics. She critically
examines the approach to ethics which may be derived from the work
of process thinkers such as A. N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne,
pointing out questions about justice and respect for individual
integrity which are raised. With these questions in mind, she
compares process ethics to a variety of other forms of
environmental ethics, as well as deep ecology. This comparative
study reveals a number of difficulties associated with process
thinking about the environment. Although some reformulations of
process philosophy in the light of these difficulties are offered,
the author suggests that a question mark should remain over the
contribution which process philosophy can make to environmental
ethics.
The study of the virtues has largely dropped out of modern
philosophy, yet it was the predominant tradition in ethics fom the
ancient Greeks until Kant. Traditionally the study of the virtues
was also the study of what constituted a successful and happy life.
Drawing on such diverse sources as Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas,
Shakespeare, Hume, Jane Austen, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Sartre, Casey
here argues that the classical virtues of courage, temperance,
practical wisdom, and justice centrally define the good for humans,
and that they are insufficiently acknowledged in modern moral
philosophy. He suggests that values of success, worldliness, and
pride are active parts of our moral thinking, and that the conflict
between these and our equally important Christian inheritance leads
to tensions and contradictions in our understanding of the moral
life.
This is a systematic evaluation of the main arguments for and
against the market as an instrument of social organization,
balancing efficiency and justice . It links the distinctive
approaches of philosophy and economics to this evaluation.
The author's royalties from this book are being donated to Saint
Frances Hospice, a charity that cares for people with palliative
and end of life care needs. The kindness project is full of
practical, actionable ideas on how you can make the world a kinder
place one small step at a time, and in turn improve your own
personal wellbeing. We'll explore how you can be kind every single
day we'll look at how to be kind whilst at home and at work, and
examine, importantly, how to be kinder to ourselves. From the
co-host of the Kindness Project Podcast, Chris Daems, comes a book
about hope, about faith in his fellow humans and why finding small
incremental ways to be kind every single day can help us become
happier and healthier. Learning from some of the kindest people on
our planet, Chris explains how we all benefit from being a little
kinder and whilst looking for kindness in others found his own road
to being a little bit kinder himself. Further details "In The
Kindness Project, Chris Daems gifts readers a brazenly honest and
highly engaging account of his own quest to be kinder in life.
-Lauren Janus "This is a book that makes you reflect on your own
character and relationships, what it means to be kind to yourself
and others. A warm, enjoyable, inspirational read, packed full of
wisdom and actionable ideas." -KeithBoyes
This timely and up to date new edition of Biomedicine and Beatitude
features an entirely new chapter on the ethics of bodily
modification. It is also updated throughout to reflect the
pontificate of Pope Francis, recent concerns including ethical
issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, and feedback from the many
instructors who used the first edition in the classroom
Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. He has conversations with
people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings
and listens as the men and women he works with explore new ways to
think about their situation. Could we ever be good if we never felt
shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness? Could someone in
prison ever be more free than someone outside? These questions
about how to live are ones we all need to ask, but in this setting
they are even more urgent. When Andy steps into jail, he also
confronts his inherited guilt: his father, uncle and brother all
spent time in prison. He has built a different life for himself,
but he still fears that their fate will be his. As he discusses
questions of truth, identity and hope with his students, he
searches for his own form of freedom. Moving, sympathetic, wise and
frequently funny, The Life Inside is an elegantly written and
unforgettable book. Through its blend of memoir, storytelling and
gentle philosophical questioning, readers will gain a new insight
into our justice system, our prisons and the plurality of lives
found inside.
Frank Jackson champions the cause of conceptual analysis as central
to philosophical inquiry. In recent years conceptual analysis has
been undervalued and, Jackson suggests, widely misunderstood; he
argues that there is nothing especially mysterious about it and a
whole range of important questions cannot be productively addressed
without it. He anchors his argument in discussion of specific
philosophical issues, starting with the metaphysical doctrine of
physicalism and moving on, via free will, meaning, personal
identity, motion and change, to the philosophy of colour and to
ethics. The significance of different kinds of supervenience
theses, Kripke and Putnam's work in the philosophy of modality and
language, and the role of intuitions about possible cases receive
detailed attention. Jackson concludes with a defence of a version
of analytical descriptivism in ethics. In this way the book not
only offers a methodological programme for philosophy, but also
throws fascinating new light on some much-debated problems and
their interrelations. puffs which may be quoted (please do not edit
without consulting OUP editor): 'This is an outstanding book. It
covers a vast amount of philosophy in a very short space, advances
a number of original and striking positions, and manages to be both
clear and concise in its expositions of other views and forceful in
its criticisms of them. The book offers something new for those
interested in the various individual problems it
discusses-conceptual analysis, the mind-body relation, secondary
qualities, modality, and ethical realism. But unifying these
individual discussions is an ambitious structure which amounts to
an outline of a complete metaphysical system, and an outline of an
epistemology for this metaphysics. It is hard to think of a central
area of analytic philosophy which will not be touched by Jackson's
conclusions.' Tim Crane, Reader in Philosophy, University College
London 'The writing is clear, straightforward, and down to
earth-the usual virtues one expects from Jackson . . . what he has
to say is innovative and valuable . . . the book deals with a large
number of apparently diverse philosophical issues, but it is also
an elegantly unified work. What gives it unity is the
metaphilosophical framework that Jackson works out with great care
and persuasiveness. This is the first serious and sustained work on
the methodology of metaphysics in recent memory. What he says about
the role of conceptual analysis in metaphysics is an important and
timely contribution. . . . It is refreshing and heartening to see a
first-class analytic philosopher doing some serious
metaphilosophical work . . . I think that the book will be greeted
as an important event in philosophical publishing.' Jaegwon Kim,
Professor of Philosophy, Brown University
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