These thirteen original essays, whose authors include some of the world's leading philosophers, examine themes from the work of the Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore (1873-1958), and demonstrate his considerable continuing influence on philosophical debate. Part I bears on epistemological topics, such as skepticism about the external world, the significance of common sense, and theories of perception. Part II is devoted to themes in ethics, such as Moore's open question argument, his non-naturalism, utilitarianism, and his notion of organic unities.

In consequence of significant social, political, economic, and demographic changes several wildlife species are currently growing in numbers and recolonizing Europe. While this is rightly hailed as a success of the environmental movement, the return of wildlife brings its own issues. As the animals arrive in the places we inhabit, we are learning anew that life with wild nature is not easy, especially when the accumulated cultural knowledge and experience pertaining to such coexistence have been all but lost. This book provides a hermeneutic study of the ways we come to understand the troubling impacts of wildlife by exploring and critically discussing the meanings of 'ecological discomforts'. Thus, it begins the work of rebuilding the culture of coexistence. The cases presented in this book range from crocodile attacks to mice infestations, and their analysis consequently builds up an ethics that sees wildlife as active participants in the shaping of human moral and existential reality. This book is of interest not only to environmental philosophers, who will find here an original contribution to the established ethical discussions, but also to wildlife managers, and even to those members of the public who themselves struggle to make sense of encounters with their new wild neighbors.

Living in a world inundated with sexual images and messages, we're tempted at every turn. While most people are familiar with the Bible's clear admonitions concerning sexual practices such as adultery and fornication, less attention is given to biblical guidance in regard to the sexual activity exercised between husband and wife. What does the Bible have to say about the way we practice our sexuality? "Is God In Your Bedroom? Discovering the Joy of Sanctified Sexuality" is a startling plunge into the Word of God, revealing plain instruction from the Bible concerning God's creative expression of unconditional love toward man-the gift of sexuality. Learn the elements that define sacred sexuality, how to protect your marriage from sinful practices, and strategies to help restore relationships afflicted by infidelity. God created the institution of marriage to be a living, vibrant representation of the unity and oneness of God. Sexuality is a gift stemming from that unity, allowing the sanctity of sexual expression to be expressed within the covenant of marriage. Adhering to the desire and will of God in sexual intimacy, our relationships will bear the mark of God's favor and blessing. Find out how you can experience God's choice blessing for your love life.

One of the most remarkable philosophers of the early 20th century, Henri Bergson attempted to blend the new understandings of biological sciences with concepts of human consciousness in such books as 1907's Creative Evolution. With this extraordinary work, first published in French in 1889, Bergson anticipates Einstein's theory of relativity and the coming revolution in theoretical physics with his exploration of free will as a function of time. Time and Free Will-first translated in English by FRANK LUBECKI POGSON (d. 1910) in 1910-served as Bergson's doctoral thesis, and offered the foundations of his highly influential theory of "Duration," a defense of free will that solves the "problems" with the concept that previous philosophers had encountered with it. Students of modern philosophy and high-end physics alike will find this a challenging but rewarding read. French philosopher HENRI BERGSON (1859-1941) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927, and is said to have influenced thinkers such as Marcel Proust, William James, Santayana, and Martin Heidegger. Among his works are Matter and Memory (1896), An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903), and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932).

Morality in context is a timely topic. A debate between philosophers and social scientists is a good way to approach it. Why is there such a booming interest in morality and why does it focus on context? One starting point is the change in the sociostructural and sociocultural conditions of modern societies. This involves change in the empirical conditions of moral action and in the social demand on morality.
As these changes are accounted for and analyzed in the social sciences, new perspectives emerge that give rise to new ways of framing issues and problems. These problems are best addressed by way of cooperation between philosophers and social scientists. As Habermas (1990) has pointed out in a much cited paper, philosophers depend on social science to fill in the data they require to answer the questions raised by philosophy in its "placeholder" function. The reverse also holds true: Social science needs the conceptual clarifications that philosophy can provide. With respect to morality, such mutual interchanges are of particular importance the contributions to this book show convincingly.

Jacqueline Taylor offers an original reconstruction of Hume's social theory, which examines the passions and imagination in relation to institutions such as government and the economy. Reflecting Subjects begins with a close examination of Hume's use of an experimental method to explain the origin, nature and effects of pride, an indirect passion that reflects a person's sense of self-worth in virtue of her valuable qualities, for example, her character or wealth. In explaining the origin of pride in terms of efficient causes, Hume displaces the traditional appeal to final causes, and is positioned to give an account of the significance for us of the passions in terms of a social theory. Subsequent chapters reconstruct this social theory, looking in particular at how the principle of sympathy functions to transmit cultural meanings and values, before examining Hume's account of social power-especially with regard to rank and sex. Turning to Hume's system of ethics, Taylor argues for the importance of Hume's more sophisticated moral philosophy in his Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, since it emphasizes certain virtues of good moral evaluation. She demonstrates that the principle of humanity stands as the central concept of Hume's Enlightenment philosophy.

Contractualism has a venerable history and considerable appeal. Yet as an account of the foundations or ultimate grounds of morality it has been thought by many philosophers to be subject to fatal objections. In this book Nicholas Southwood argues otherwise. Beginning by detailing and diagnosing the shortcomings of the existing "Hobbesian" and "Kantian" models of contractualism, he then proposes a novel "deliberative" model, based on an interpersonal, deliberative conception of practical reason. He argues that the deliberative model of contractualism represents an attractive alternative to its more familiar rivals and that it has the resources to offer a more compelling account of morality's foundations, one that does justice to the twin demands of moral accuracy and explanatory adequacy.

This book comprises 30 chapters representing certain new trends in reconcenptualizing Confucian ideas, ideals, values and ways of thinking by scholars from China and abroad. While divergent in approaches, these chapters are converged on conceptualizing and reconceptualizing Confucianism into something philosophically meaningful and valuable to the people of the 21st century. They are grouped into three parts, and each is dedicated to one of the three major themes this book attempts to address. Part one is mainly on scholarly reviews of Confucian doctrines by which new interpretations will be drawn out. Part two is an assembled attempt to reexamine Confucian concepts, in which critiques of traditional views lead to new perspectives for perennial questions. Part three is focused on reinterpreting Confucian virtues and values, in the hope that a new sense of being moral can be gained through old normative forms.

Originally published in 1952, al-Din, by prominent Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abdullah Draz (1894-1958), has been critically acclaimed as one of the most influential Arab Muslim studies of universal 'religion' and forms of religiosity in modern times. Written as an introductory textbook for a course in the "History of Religions" at King Fuad I University in Cairo-the first of its kind offered at an Egyptian institution of higher learning-this book presents a critical overview of classical approaches to the scholarly study of religion. While ultimately adapted to an Islamic paradigm, the book is a novel attempt to construct a grand narrative about the large methodological issues of Religious Studies and the History of Religions and in relation to modernity and secularism. Translated for the first time in English by Yahya Haidar, this book demonstrates how the scholarly academic study of religion in the West, often described as 'Orientalist', came to influence and help shape a counter-discourse from one of the leading Arab Muslim scholars of his time.

Why is the philosopher Hegel returning as a potent force in contemporary thinking? Why, after a long period when Hegel and his dialectics of history have seemed less compelling than they were for previous generations of philosophers, is study of Hegel again becoming important? Fashionable contemporary theorists like Francis Fukuyama and Slavoj Zizek, as well as radical theologians like Thomas Altizer, have all recently been influenced by Hegel, the philosopher whose philosophy now seems somehow perennial- or, to borrow an idea from Nietzsche-eternally returning. Exploring this revival via the notion of 'negation' in Hegelian thought, and relating such negativity to sophisticated ideas about art and artistic creation, Andrew W. Hass argues that the notion of Hegelian negation moves us into an expansive territory where art, religion and philosophy may all be radically conceived and broken open into new forms of philosophical expression. The implications of such a revived Hegelian philosophy are, the author argues, vast and current. Hegel thereby becomes the philosopher par excellence who can address vital issues in politics, economics, war and violence, leading to a new form of globalised ethics. Hass makes a bold and original contribution to religion, philosophy, art and the history of ideas.

Classic 19th-century British novels that give full expression to complex ethical problems necessarily project the claims of conflicting or interfering values and thus complicate the strategies for resolving the dilemmas they dramatize. This book reasserts the importance of the ethics of reading. It analyzes a developing dialogue between moral philosophers and literary critics, all of whom in their different ways celebrate literature's capacity to confront us with values in conflict. They agree that a key reason for rereading and arguing about classic novels is that they often hypothesize moral dilemmas in more realistically particularized detail than any abstract, rational discussion of ethics could match. But even if novels provide specifically situated explorations of moral issues, this does not mean that they can resolve the problems they dramatize.

This book considers interfering values in novels by Austen, Dickens, Eliot, and Hardy and the difficulties in interpreting these works. Each novel has caused protracted disputes among critics because of its heroine and its conflicting values. Different readings of these novels reveal how critics engage in interpretive strategies to defend or deplore what they read. But while they try to articulate and limit the reader's responses, the novels break through the frames they would impose, thus enlarging our awareness of the problems of making judgments.

What make someone a good human being? Is there an objective answer to this question, an answer that can be given in naturalistic terms? For ages philosophers have attempted to develop some sort of naturalistic ethics. Against ethical naturalism, however, notable philosophers have contended that such projects are impossible, due to the existence of some sort of gap between facts and values. Others have suggested that teleology, upon which many forms of ethical naturalism depend, is an outdated metaphysical concept. This book argues that a good human being is one who has those traits the possession of which enables someone to achieve those ends natural to beings like us. Thus, the answer to the question of what makes a good human being is given in terms both objective and naturalistic. The author shows that neither 'is-ought' gaps, nor objections concerning teleology pose insurmountable problems for naturalistic virtue ethics. This work is a much needed contribution to the ongoing debate about ethical theory and ethical virtue.

For centuries human beings have asked questions about what it is to be virtuous and how to teach goodness to the next generation. This volume contains 11 essays, written by known thinkers in the fields of theology, philosophy and anthropology, which address the question: can virtue be taught? Collectively, the essays illuminate our current national dilemma over the problematic role of moral education in a pluralistic society; in addition, they illustrate the positive role diversity plays in any discussion of virtues and education in our interdependent global community. The first section of the book challenges the questions and answers of the classical philosophers, beginning with an essay by Huston Smith, who tackles the question of whether humans have a capacity for virtue. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty then examines appropriate aims for education; Bhikhu Parekh reflects on Jeremy Bentham's description of the nature of virtue, and Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich presents a feminist reconsideration of the question of virtue. Frederick J. Streng begins the next section with an essay on teaching virtues in different cultures. Katherine Platt examines what it means to be virtuous in the Kerkennah Islands of Tunisia, and Ninion Smart explores the centrality of clarity and imagination to Buddhist ethics. The final section, on contemporary contexts for teaching virtue, begins with Leroy S. Rouner's essay, which examines three models of how to teach virtue. Next, Robert Cummings Neville argues that institutions of higher education have a responsibility to teach religious learning. Sharon Daloz Parks reports on business school students' perceptions of their own public accountability, and George Rupp concludes the volume with an argument that multicultural education can lead to a strengthened, shored national identity that is enriched rather than strained by its diversity.

This book presents an alternative theory of globalization that derives not from the dominant perspective of the West, from which this process emerged, but from the critical vantage point of the Third World, which has borne the heaviest burdens of globalization. It offers a critical and uniquely first-hand perspective that is lacking not only from the apologists of Western hegemony, but from most scholars writing against this hegemony from within the globalizing world. Renowned throughout Latin America and parts of Europe, the author, Brazilian geographer Milton Santos, has long been for the most part inaccessible to the English-speaking world. Only one of his books, The Shared Space: The Two Circuits of the Urban Economy in Underdeveloped Countries, published in 1975, has been translated into English; nevertheless, the works of Santos's most important phase, from the 1980s until his death in 2001, have remained unavailable to English readers. With the translation of Toward an Other Globalization, one of the last works published in Santos's lifetime, this situation has finally been rectified. In this book, Santos argues that we must consider globalization in three different senses: globalization as a fable (the world as globalizing agents make us believe), as perversity (the world as it is presently, in the throes of globalization), and as possibility (the world as it could be). What emerges from the analysis of these three senses is an alternative theory of globalization rooted in the perspective of the so-called Global South. Santos concludes his text with a message that is optimistic, but in no way nai ve. What he offers instead is a revolutionary optimism and, indeed, an other globalization.

Philosopher David Hume was considered to one of the most important figures in the age of Scottish enlightenment. "A Treatise of Human Nature" broke new ground by attempting to base philosophy on human nature, making it one of the most important texts in Western Philosophy. Human passions and the ability to distinguish between virtue and vice are elucidated in the text. In "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" Hume discusses the weaknesses that humans have in their abilities to understand the world around them. This book is often a textbook for Philosophy Courses. "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" is an elegant enquiry into ethical theory, explained clearly and comprehensively. In Hume's "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" he explores the very idea of God, the possibility of his existence, and his alleged nature as a good, perfect, omniscient, omnipotent Supreme Being.

Christianity is commonly held to have introduced an entirely new and better morality into the ancient world, a new morality that was decidedly universal, in contrast to the ethics of the philosophical schools which were only concerned with the intellectual few. Runar M. Thorsteinsson presents a challenge to this view by comparing Christian morality in first-century Rome with contemporary Stoic ethics in the city.
Thorsteinsson introduces and discusses the moral teaching of Roman Stoicism; of Seneca, Musonius Rufus, and Epictetus. He then presents the moral teaching of Roman Christianity as it is represented in Paul's Letter to the Romans, the First Letter of Peter, and the First Letter of Clement. Having established the bases for his comparison, he examines the similarities and differences between Roman Stoicism and Roman Christianity in terms of morality.
Five broad themes are used for the comparison, questions of Christian and Stoic views about: a particular morality or way of life as proper worship of the deity; certain individuals (like Jesus and Socrates) as paradigms for the proper way of life; the importance of mutual love and care; non-retaliation and 'love of enemies'; and the social dimension of ethics. This approach reveals a fundamental similarity between the moral teachings of Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism. The most basic difference is found in the ethical scope of the two: While the latter teaches unqualified universal humanity, the former seems to condition the ethical scope in terms of religious adherence.

In this authoritative discussion of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, A. W. Price considers four related areas: eudaimonia, or living and acting well, as the ultimate end of action; virtues of character in relation to the emotions, and to one another; practical reasoning, especially from an end to ways or means; and acrasia, or action that is contrary to the agent's own judgement of what is best. The focal concept is that of eudaimonia, which both Plato and Aristotle view as an abstract goal that is valuable enough to motivate action. Virtue has a double role to play in making its achievement possible, both in proposing subordinate ends apt to the context, and in protecting the agent against temptations to discard them too easily. For both purposes, Price suggests that virtues need to form a unity--but one that can be conceived in various ways. Among the tasks of deliberation is to work out how, and whether, to pursue some putative end in context. Aristotle returns to early Plato in finding it problematic that one should consciously sacrifice acting well to some incidental attraction; Plato later finds this possible by postulating schism within the soul. Price maintains that it is their emphasis upon the centrality of action within human life that makes the reflections of these ancient philosophers perennially relevant.

This book is about normativity and reasons. By the end, however, the subject becomes the relation between self, thought, and world. If we understand normativity, we are on the road to understanding this relation.
John Skorupski argues that all normative properties are reducible to reason relations, so that the sole normative ingredient in any normative concept is the concept of a reason. This is a concept fundamental to all thought. It is pervasive (actions, beliefs, and sentiments all fall within its range), primitive (all other normative concepts are reducible to it), and constitutive of the idea of thought itself. Thinking is sensitivity to reasons. Thought in the full sense of autonomous cognition is possible only for a being sensitive to reasons and capable of deliberating about them.
In Part II of the book Skorupski examines epistemic reasons, and shows that aprioricity, necessity, evidence, and probability, which may not seem to be normative at all, are in fact normative concepts analysable in terms of the concept of a reason. In Part III he shows the same for the concept of a person's good, and for moral concepts including the concept of a right. Part IV moves to the epistemology and metaphysics of reasons. When we make claims about reasons to believe, reasons to feel, or reasons to act we are asserting genuine propositions: judgeable, truth-apt contents. But these normative propositions must be distinguished from factual propositions, for they do not represent states of affairs.
So Skorupski's ambitious theory of normativity has broad and deep implications for philosophy. It shows how reflection on the logic, epistemology, and ontology of reasons finally leads us to an account of the interplay of self, thought, and world.

Fairness and Futurity: Essays on Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice brings together leading international figures in political theory and sociology, as well as representatives from the political community, to consider the normative issues at stake in the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice. It raises important questions and sets out to provide the answers. If future generations are owed justice, what should we bequeath them? Is `sustainability' an appropriate medium for environmentalists to express their demands? Is environmental protection compatible with intra-generational justice? Is environmental sustainability a luxury when social peace has broken down? These essays emerged from three intensive seminars that involved participants in constant re-evaluations of their work, and which bought three distinct groups-environmental theorists, `mainstream' political theorists, and policy community members-into fruitful contact. In particular, the attempt to involve `mainstream' theorists in environmental questions, and to encourage environmentalists to use intellectual resources of political theory, should be highlighted.

Rarely discussed in courses on ethics is the topic of excuses, but in McDowell's view, excuses offer the most illuminating way to understand the true nature of ethical problems in the professions. He looks at excuses that professionals give when accused of acting unethically, and asks, when are they valid and when not? Problems of professional ethics are really problems of compliance, he argues, not ignorance of expectations. The study of excuses can help us understand what these problems are and offer insights into ways to solve them. Banks maintains too that our ethical expectations may need overhauling, given substantial changes that have occurred in how professionals do their work today. They can be easily persuaded that what they are doing is not unethical; it depends on the excuses they give themselves as well as others. Professionals know what's expected of them, but social and economic pressures make compliance difficult. Professionals in all fields, who struggle to be both successful and ethical, will find the book challenging, provocative, and yet sympathetic and reassuring too. It will also be an important resource for graduate students in courses exploring the relationship between business and ethics.

Excuses may be ways of avoiding professional responsibility, says McDowell, but they may also be the way in which general ethical principles are adapted to particular contexts. They may also indicate that ethical codes need to be reformulated to adapt to changes in how professional services are delivered. Specialization, urbanization and the systematic breakdown in community relationships, the globalization of the economy, system, and market pressures for success--for all these reasons, professionals today face problems much different from those faced by their counterparts earlier in the century. Excuses also raise the problem of whether any system of voluntary compliance, like professional ethics, can function when the decision on whether an excuse is valid or invalid rests with the actor, who can rationalize almost any self-interested action he or she might take. McDowell explores these issues and others in a fresh, readable style, with numerous anecdotal examples, and with evidence from many sources that the crisis is real and demands quick but lasting remedies.

This book reconstructs the cornerstones of Jesus's moral teachings about how to lead a good, even exemplary, human life. It does so in a way that is compatible with the most prominent, competing versions of the historical Jesus. The work also contrast Jesus' understanding of the best way to lead our lives with that of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both Jesus and Nietzsche were self-consciously moral revolutionaries. Jesus refashioned the imperatives of Jewish law to conform to what he was firmly convinced was the divine will. Nietzsche aspired to transvalue the dominant values of his time -which themselves were influenced greatly by Christianity- in service of what he took to be a higher vision. The interplay of these radical versions of the good human life, seasoned with critical commentary emerging from modern findings in the sciences and humanities, opens possibilities and lines of inquiry that can inform our choices in answering that enduring, paramount question, "How should we live our lives?"