|
|
Books > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Ethics & moral philosophy
While books on archaeological and anthropological ethics have
proliferated in recent years, few attempt to move beyond a
conventional discourse on ethics to consider how a discussion of
the social and political implications of archaeological practice
might be conceptualized differently. The conceptual ideas about
ethics posited in this volume make it of interest to readers
outside of the discipline; in fact, to anyone interested in
contemporary debates around the possibilities and limitations of a
discourse on ethics. The authors in this volume set out to do three
things. The first is to track the historical development of a
discussion around ethics, in tandem with the development and
"disciplining" of archaeology. The second is to examine the
meanings, consequences and efficacies of a discourse on ethics in
contemporary worlds of practice in archaeology. The third is to
push beyond the language of ethics to consider other ways of
framing a set of concerns around rights, accountabilities and
meanings in relation to practitioners, descendent and affected
communities, sites, material cultures, the ancestors and so on.
This is the first philosophy textbook in moral psychology,
introducing students to a range of philosophical topics and debates
such as: What is moral motivation? Do reasons for action always
depend on desires? Is emotion or reason at the heart of moral
judgment? Under what conditions are people morally responsible? Are
there self-interested reasons for people to be moral? Moral
Psychology: A Contemporary Introduction presents research by
philosophers and psychologists on these topics, and addresses the
overarching question of how empirical research is (or is not)
relevant to philosophical inquiry.
In 1962, the publication of Thomas Kuhn's Structure
'revolutionized' the way one conducts philosophical and historical
studies of science. Through the introduction of both memorable and
controversial notions, such as paradigms, scientific revolutions,
and incommensurability, Kuhn argued against the traditionally
accepted notion of scientific change as a progression towards the
truth about nature, and instead substituted the idea that science
is a puzzle solving activity, operating under paradigms, which
become discarded after it fails to respond accordingly to anomalous
challenges and a rival paradigm. Kuhn's Structure has sold over 1.4
million copies and the Times Literary Supplement named it one of
the "Hundred Most Influential Books since the Second World War."
Now, fifty years after this groundbreaking work was published, this
volume offers a timely reappraisal of the legacy of Kuhn's book and
an investigation into what Structure offers philosophical,
historical, and sociological studies of science in the future.
In his collection George extends the critique of liberalism he expounded in Making Men Moral and also goes beyond it to show how contemporary natural law theory provides a superior way of thinking about basic problems of justice and political morality. It is written with the same combination of stylistic elegance and analytical rigour that distinguished his critical work. Not content merely to defend natural law from its cultural despisers, he deftly turns the tables and deploys the idea to mount a stunning attack on regnant liberal beliefs about such issues as abortion, sexuality, and the place of religion in public life.
Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good is a
major study of Kierkegaard's relation to Kant that gives a
comprehensive account of radical evil and the highest good, two
controversial doctrines with important consequences for ethics and
religion.
Structured directly around the specification of the OCR, this is
the definitive textbook for students of Advanced Subsidiary or
Advanced Level courses. The updated third edition covers all the
necessary topics for Religious Ethics in an enjoyable
student-friendly fashion. Each chapter includes: a list of key
issues OCR specification checklist explanations of key terminology
overviews of key scholars and theories self-test review questions
exam practice questions. To maximise students' chances of success,
the book contains a section dedicated to answering examination
questions. It comes complete with diagrams and tables, lively
illustrations, a comprehensive glossary and full bibliography.
Additional resources are available via the companion website.
Mou Zongsan (1909-1995) is one of the representatives of Modern
Confucianism and an important Chinese philosopher of the twentieth
century. This two-volume book critically examines the philosophical
system of moral metaphysics proposed by Mou, which combines
Confucianism and Kantianism philosophy. The author looks into the
problems in the moral metaphysics by Mou and his systematic
subversion of Confucianism on three levels: ethics, metaphysics and
historical philosophy. The first volume discusses Mou's distortion
of traditional Confucian ethos on the ethical level by introducing
Kantian moral concept and misappropriating Kant's concept of
autonomy. In the second volume the author critiques Mou's
philosophical development of Confucianism in terms of conscience as
ontology and historical philosophy respectively, which draws on
ideas of Kant and Hegel while deviating from the classical context
and tradition of Confucian thoughts. The title will appeal to
scholars, students and philosophers interested in Chinese
philosophy, Confucian ethics, Neo-Confucianism and Comparative
Philosophy.
For the Common Good showcases the insights, reflections, and
recommendations of some of today's most forward-thinking and
inspiring leaders, as they explore the challenges of leadership in
the context of our global, 21st-century society. Featuring original
essays by such luminaries as Nobel Prize winner John Hume;
Leader-to-Leader Chair Frances Hesselbein; Harvard University's
Howard Gardner; M.K. Gandhi Institute's Founder Arun Gandhi; poet
David Whyte; and President Jimmy Carter, For the Common Good
stresses the need for a new kind of leadership committed to
promoting social welfare, justice, and opportunity. Against the
all-too-familiar backdrop of corporate malfeasance, scandal in our
religious institutions, political chicanery to serve ulterior
motives, and constant reminders of the corruptive influences of
power, the contributors apply their expertise in such fields as
ecology, education, and conflict resolution to illuminate emerging
roles and responsibilities of today's leaders. Collectively, the
authors argue that because individuals, institutions, and societies
are now so profoundly connected and inter-related, every decision
of consequence has a ripple effect. Leaders of all stripes,
including corporate executives, politicians, social activists,
scientists, and educators, must display courage, integrity,
humility, and the wherewithal to consider the long-term impact of
their decision and actions. Most important, they must engage in
dialogue and recognize that creative solutions to complex problems
require collaboration across sectors and cultures to achieve common
goals. The result is a provocative and multidimensional exploration
of leadership in troubled and troublingtimes--but with a hopeful
note that individuals and organizations will rise to the
challenges.
In any field whether scientific, business, or social ethics plays a
critical role in determining what is acceptable in a particular
community and what is considered taboo. The source of these
preconditions is often a complex interweaving of tradition and
rational thought. Socio-Cybernetic Study of God and the
World-System investigates morality in a socio-scientific worldview,
examining the epistemology of existence in conjunction with Islamic
monotheistic law to generate a world-system that governs action and
reaction in the context of a variety of cognitive and social
environments. Readers with backgrounds in finance and economics can
utilize this book to construct a more thorough theoretical
understanding of their societal and professional associations."
Like its ancient rivals, Stoic ethics was a form of virtue ethics,
yet while the concept of virtue was clearly central to Stoic
ethics, the concept of Stoic virtue has not yet been fully
explored. Instead, the existing literature tends to impose on the
Stoic material philosophically quite alien non-Aristotelian
interpretations of virtue. According to Christoph Jedan, however, a
thorough examination of the Stoic concept of virtue leads to a
reassessment of our understanding of Stoic ethics. This book
emphasises in particular the theological underpinning of Stoic
ethics, which Jedan contends has been underestimated in current
accounts of Stoic ethics. Jedan argues that the theological motifs
in Stoic ethics are in fact pivotal to a complete understanding of
Stoic ethics. The book focuses on Chrysippus, the most important of
the early Stoic thinkers, suggesting that his contribution, and in
particular its religious aspect, remained a key point of reference
for later Stoics. This fascinating book makes a crucial
contribution to the field of ancient ethics.>
This volume collects the best and most influential essays on
knowledge, rationality and morality that Stephen Stich has
published in the last 40 years. All of the essays are concerned, in
one way or another, with the ways in which findings and theories in
the cognitive sciences can contribute to, and sometimes reshape
traditional philosophical conversations and debates. A central
theme in the essays on epistemology and rationality is the
philosophical significance of empirical work on human reasoning
done by researchers in the "heuristics and biases" tradition, and
by their critics in evolutionary psychology. In the essays on
morality, a wide range of empirical work is explored, including
studies of the psychological foundations of norms, work on the
moral / conventional distinction, and empirical attempts to
determine whether humans ever act on altruistic motives. Stich was
one of the pioneers in the experimental philosophy movement, and
work in experimental philosophy plays a prominent role in many of
these essays. The volume includes a new introductory essay that
offers an overview of the papers and traces the history of how they
emerged.
In this wide-ranging philosophical work, Koons takes on two powerful dogmas: anti-realism and materialism. In doing so, Koons develops an efficient metaphysical system that accounts for such phenomena as information, mental representation, our knowledge of logic, mathematics and science, the structure of spacetime, the identity of physical objects, and the objectivity of values and moral norms.
The chapters in this volume recognize that different contexts,
sites, and institutional goals will raise different sets of
questions and judgements about what constitutes ethical writing
instruction, ethical response to written texts, and ethical
evaluation of a writers process and products. They do not aim to
resolve all the ethical questions that might arise in and about
composition classrooms, but they present a panoply of views,
arguments, and perspectives on what it means to talk about ethics
in the writing classroom and thereby encourage writing teachers to
consider the ethical dimensions of their own instructional
practices.
Journalistic ethics are defined, explored, and analyzed in this
comprehensive and timely volume. Topic examples include
confidentiality of news sources, the right to privacy, deception of
news sources, freedom of the press, the role of the media in
shaping public policy, news bias, whistle-blowing and the press,
journalistic morality and professional competence, ethical problems
in broadcast journalism, social responsibility and magazines, and
journalistic ethics and computer technology. Readers can also find
summaries of relevant ethical codes, for example, the American
Society of Newspaper Editors Code of Ethics and the American
Federation of Advertising Principles. A must-have reference source
for students, teachers, journalist, and editors.
This new digital edition of The Trial and Death of Socrates:
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo presents Benjamin Jowett's
classic translations, as revised by Enhanced Media Publishing. A
number of new or expanded annotations are also included.
In light of new biomedical technologies, such as artificial
reproduction, stem cell research, genetic selection and design, the
question of what we owe to future persons-and unborn life more
generally-is as contested as ever. In A Theory of Unborn Life: From
Abortion to Genetic Manipulation, author Anja J. Karnein provides a
novel theory that shows how our commitments to persons can help us
make sense of our obligations to unborn life. We should treat
embryos that will develop into persons in anticipation of these
persons. But how viable is this theory? Moreover, what does it mean
to treat embryos in anticipation of the future persons they will
develop into? Exploring the attractiveness of this approach for
Germany and the U.S. - two countries with very different legal
approaches to valuing unborn life-Karnein comes to startling
conclusions to some of today's greatest ethical and legal debates.
Under Karnein's theory, abortion and stem cell research are
legitimate, since embryos that do not have mothers willing to
continue to assist their growth have no way of developing into
persons. However, Karnein also contends that where the health of
embryos is threatened by third parties or even by the women
carrying them, embryos need to be treated with the same care due to
the children that emerge from them. In the case of genetic
manipulation, it is important to respect future persons like our
contemporaries, respecting their independence as individuals as
well as the way they enter this world without modification. Genetic
interventions are therefore only legitimate for insuring that
future persons have the necessary physical and mental endowment to
lead independent lives so as to be protected from being dominated
by their contemporaries. Evincing polarization and dogma, Karnein's
clean, philosophically-driven analysis provides a sound ethical
foundation for the interpretation of any variety of legal dilemmas
surrounding unborn life.
While ethics has been an integral part of economics since the days
of Adam Smith (if not Aristotle), many modern economists dismiss
ethical concerns in favor of increasing formal mathematical and
computational methods. But recent financial crises in the real
world have reignited discussions of the importance of ethics to
economics, including growing calls for a new approach to
incorporating moral philosophy in economic theory, practice, and
policy. Ironically, it is the ethics of virtue advocated by
Aristotle and Adam Smith that may lead to the most promising way to
developing an economics that emphasizes the virtues, character, and
judgment of the agents it models. In Economics and the Virtues,
editors Jennifer A. Baker and Mark D. White have brought together
fifteen leading scholars in economics and philosophy to offer fresh
perspectives on integrating virtue into economics. The first
section covers five major thinkers and schools in the virtue
tradition, tracing historical connections and suggesting new areas
of cooperation. The second section applies the ethics of virtue to
modern economic theory, delving into its current practices and
methodology to suggest areas for integration with moral philosophy.
Finally, the third section addresses specific topics such as
markets, profits, and justice in the context of virtue and vice,
offering valuable applications of virtue to economics. With
insights that are novel as well as rooted in time-tested ethical
thought, Economics and the Virtues will be of interest to
economists, philosophers, and other scholars in the social sciences
and humanities, as well as professionals and policymakers in the
fields of economics and finance, and makes an invaluable
contribution to the ongoing discussion over the role of ethics in
economics.
Pragmatist philosopher William James has long been deemed a dubious
guide to ethical reasoning. This book overturns such thinking,
demonstrating the coherence of James's efforts to develop a
flexible but rigorous framework for individuals and societies
seeking freedom, meaning, and justice in a world of
interdependence, uncertainty, and change.
Russell Hardin presents a new explication of David Hume's moral and
political theory. With Hume, he holds that our normative views can
be scientifically explained but they cannot be justified as true.
Hume argued for the psychological basis of such views. In
particular, he argued for sympathy as the mirroring of the
psychological sensations and emotions of others. By placing Hume in
the developing tradition of social science, as a strong forerunner
of his younger friend Adam Smith, Hardin demonstrates Hume's strong
strategic sense, his nascent utilitarianism, his powerful theory of
convention as a main source of social and political order, and his
recognition of moral and political theory as a single enterprise.
|
|