This book presents a major new value theory, value as creative actualization. The book takes a radically new approach to values. All potential values, whether artistic, scientific, political, or economic must be creatively actualized in the world. The theory argues for an active view in which value involves creation of novelties and thereby changes the world in some respect. Thus value is neither transcendent nor subjective, as a good of some sort has emerged in the world. Moreover, creative actualization means we can actualize standards, ideals, kinds and other norms. Creative actualization thereby dissolves the distinction between idealism and realism, since value changes the "real" with novel goods. The ideal is made real by creative actualization. The book examines traditional issues such as inherent value, modes, and meaning in the light of value as creative actualization. The later part of the book critically evaluates the history of value theory, arguing that it is insensitive to the environment and inconsistent with inherent values. Creative actualization extends historical pragmatism in novel ways. This value theory includes an ecocentric ethic, tying value theory to debates in environmental philosophy. The theory attempts to take the environment into consideration in ethics.

This classic collection of essays, first published in 1979, has had an enduring influence on philosophical work on the nature of law and its relation to morality. Raz begins by presenting an analysis of the concept of authority and what is involved in law's claim to moral authority. He then develops a detailed explanation of the nature of law and legal systems, presenting a seminal argument for legal positivism. Within this framework Raz then examines the areas of legal thought that have been viewed as impregnated with moral values - namely the social functions of law, the ideal of the rule of law, and the adjudicative role of the courts.
The final part of the book is given to understanding the proper moral attitude of a citizen towards the law. Raz examines whether the citizen is under a moral obligation to obey the law and whether there is a right to dissent. Two appendices, added for the revised edition, develop Raz's views on the nature of law, offering a further dialogue with the work of Hans Kelsen, and a reply to Robert Alexy's criticisms of legal positivism.
This revised edition makes accessible one of the classic works of modern legal philosophy, and represents an ideal companion to Raz's new collection, Between Authority and Interpretation.

The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 prompted unprecedented public interest in the ethics of war, a debate that has raged furiously in the media, in politics and in the public consciousness ever since. In this fascinating and informative book, Nicholas Fotion explores the notion of developing an ethical theory that guides the behaviour of those who are at war.Fotion gives a clear account of just war theory, presenting it as a useful device in helping us make decisions about what we should do when war appears on the horizon. Examining conflicts such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Israel, the Falklands and Afghanistan, the book interrogates the roles of the various parties involved in military action. Articulate, provocative and stimulating, "War and Ethics" is an ideal introduction to this hugely important debate."Think Now" is a brand new series of stimulating and accessible books examining key contemporary social issues from a philosophical perspective. Written by experts in philosophy, these books offer sophisticated and provocative yet engaging writing on political and cultural themes of genuine concern to the educated reader.

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.

What could Wittgenstein's work contribute to the rapidly growing literature on life's meaning? This book not only examines Wittgenstein's scattered remarks about value and 'sense of life' but also argues that his philosophy and 'way of seeing' has far reaching implications for the ways theorists approach an ancient question: 'How shall one live?'.

Emotions shape our mental and social lives. Their relation to morality is, however, problematic. Since ancient times, philosophers have disagreed about the place of emotions in morality. One the one hand, some hold that emotions are disorderly and unpredictable animal drives, which undermine our autonomy and interfere with our reasoning. For them, emotions represent a persistent source of obstacles to morality, as in the case of self-love. Some virtues, such as prudence, temperance, and fortitude, require or simply consist in the capacity to counteract the disruptive effect of emotions. On the other hand, venerable traditions of thought place emotions such as respect, love, and compassion at the very heart of morality. Emotions are sources of moral knowledge, modes of moral recognition, discernment, valuing, and understanding. Emotions such as blame, guilt, and shame are the voice of moral conscience, and are central to the functioning of our social lives and normative practices. New scientific findings about the pervasiveness of emotions posit new challenges to ethical theory. Are we responsible for emotions? What is their relation to practical rationality? Are they roots of our identity or threats to our autonomy? This volume is born out of the conviction that philosophy provides a distinctive approach to these problems. Fourteen original articles, by prominent scholars in moral psychology and philosophy of mind, offer new arguments about the relation between emotions and practical rationality, value, autonomy, and moral identity.

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.

Significance and System: Essays on Kant's Ethics brings together central lines of thought in Mark Timmons's work on Kant's moral theory. The first part of the book concerns the interpretation and justification of the categorical imperative in which Timmons argues for a "differential roles" interpretation of the categorical imperative, according to which distinct formulations of this principle play different roles in the overall economy of Kant's ethics. In addition he offers a detailed interpretation of the analytic/synthetic distinction in Kant's ethics that plays a central role in Kant's justification of his supreme moral principle. In the second part, Timmons addresses questions about the relation between motive and rightness, arguing, for example, that contemporary Kantians have misunderstood that relation. This part also examines Kant's attempt in the Doctrine of Virtue to ground a system of ethical duties in the categorical imperative. In part three, Timmons turns to issues in Kant's psychology of moral evil, including the psychology of the devilish vices. Throughout Timmons combines interpretive insight with a critical eye in interpreting and criticizing Kant's ethical thought.

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.

The Stoics are known to have been a decisive influence on early Christian moral thought, but the import of this influence for contemporary Christian ethics has been underexplored. Elizabeth Agnew Cochran argues that attention to the Stoics enriches a Christian understanding of the virtues, illuminating precisely how historical Protestant theology gives rise to a distinctive virtue ethic. Through examining the dialogue between Roman Stoic ethics and the work of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, Cochran illuminates key theological convictions that provide a foundation for a contemporary Protestant virtue ethic, consistent with theological beliefs characteristic of the historical Reformed tradition.

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.

In modern democracies, existing moral pluralism conflicts with a commitment to resolve political disputes by way of moral reasoning. Given this fact, how can there be moral resolutions to political disputes and what type of reasoning is appropriate in the public sphere? Fives explores this by closely analysing the work of MacIntyre and Rawls.

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.

This compact and elegant work (equally fitting for both academic as well as the trade audiences) provides a readily accessible and highly readable overview of Bhutan's unique opportunities and challenges; all her prominent environmental legislation, regulatory statutes, ecological customs and practices, both in historic and contemporary terms. At the same time, Bionomics places the ecological context, including a section on animal rights in Bhutan, within the nation's Buddhist spiritual and ethical setting. Historic contextualization accents the book's rich accounting of every national park and scientific reserve, as well as providing up-to-the-minute climate-change related hurdles for the country. Merging the interdisciplinary sciences, engineering and humanities data in a compelling up-to-date portrait of the country, the authors have presented this dramatic compendium against the backdrop of an urgent, global ecological time-frame. It thus becomes clear that the articulated stakes for Bhutan, like her neighboring Himalayan and Indian sub-continental countries (China, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar) are immense, as the Anthropocene epoch unfolds, affecting every living being across the planet. Because Bhutan's two most rewarding revenue streams derive from the sale of hydro-electric power and from tourism, the complexities of modern pressures facing a nation that prides herself on maintaining traditional customs in what has been a uniquely isolated nation are acute.

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.>

Spanning religion, moral philosophy and scientific understanding of the human condition, this unique book draws together and adds to the latest thinking on morality, its causes, mutations, tensions and common features. Challenging misplaced concepts of 'moral progress' and the supremacy of empathy, it presents proposals to enhance the capacity of public policy to respond more effectively to morality and associated shifts in social mores in different cultural settings.