Something is subject to luck if it is beyond our control. In this book, Haji shows that luck detrimentally affects both moral obligation and moral responsibility. He argues that factors influencing the way we are, together with considerations that link motivation and ability to perform intentional actions, frequently preclude our being able to do otherwise. Since obligation requires that we can do otherwise, luck compromises the range of what is morally obligatory for us. This result, together with principles that conjoin responsibility and obligation, is then exploited to derive the further skeptical conclusion that behavior for which we are morally responsible is limited as well. Throughout these explorations, Haji makes extensive use of concrete cases to test the limits of how we should understand free will moral responsibility, blameworthiness, determinism, and luck itself.

Ever since Plato expelled the poets from his ideal state, the ethics of art has had to confront philosophy's denial of art's morality. In Art before the Law, Ruth Ronen proposes a new outlook on the ethics of art by arguing that art insists on this tradition of denial, affirming its singular ethics through negativity. Ronen treats the mechanism of negation as the basis for the relationship between art and ethics. She shows how, through moves of denial, resistance, and denouncement, art exploits its negative relation to morality. While deception, fiction, and transgression allegedly locate art outside morality and ethics, Ronen argues they enable art to reveal the significance of the moral law, its origins, and the idea of the good. By employing the thought of Freud and Lacan, Ronen reconsiders the aesthetic tradition from Plato through Kant and later philosophers of art in order to establish an ethics of art. An interdisciplinary study, Art before the Law is sure to be of interest both to academic philosophers and to those interested in psychoanalytic theory and practice.

This book provides a new interpretation of the ethical theory of G.W.F. Hegel. The aim is not only to give a new interpretation for specialists in German Idealism, but also to provide an analysis that makes Hegel's ethics accessible for all scholars working in ethical and political philosophy. While Hegel's political philosophy has received a good deal of attention in the literature, the core of his ethics has eluded careful exposition, in large part because it is contained in his claims about conscience. This book shows that, contrary to accepted wisdom, conscience is the central concept for understanding Hegel's view of practical reason and therefore for understanding his ethics as a whole. The argument combines careful exegesis of key passages in Hegel's texts with detailed treatments of problems in contemporary ethics and reconstructions of Hegel's answers to those problems. The main goals are to render comprehensible Hegel's notoriously difficult texts by framing arguments with debates in contemporary ethics, and to show that Hegel still has much to teach us about the issues that matter to us most. Central topics covered in the book are the connection of self-consciousness and agency, the relation of motivating and justifying reasons, moral deliberation and the holism of moral reasoning, mutual recognition, and the rationality of social institutions.

Humans encounter and use animals in a stunning number of ways. The nature of these animals and the justifiability or unjustifiabilitly of human uses of them are the subject matter of this volume.
Philosophers have long been intrigued by animal minds and vegetarianism, but only around the last quarter of the twentieth century did a significant philosophical literature begin to be developed on both the scientific study of animals and the ethics of human uses of animals. This literature had a primary focus on discussion of animal psychology, the moral status of animals, the nature and significance of species, and a number of practical problems. This Oxford Handbook is designed to capture the nature of the questions as they stand today and to propose solutions to many of the major problems. Several chapters in this volume explore matters that have never previously been examined by philosophers.
The authors of the thirty-five chapters come from a diverse set of philosophical interests in the History of Philosophy, the Philosophy of Mind, the Philosophy of Biology, the Philosophy of Cognitive Science, the Philosophy of Language, Ethical Theory, and Practical Ethics. They explore many theoretical issues about animal minds and an array of practical concerns about animal products, farm animals, hunting, circuses, zoos, the entertainment industry, safety-testing on animals, the status and moral significance of species, environmental ethics, the nature and significance of the minds of animals, and so on. They also investigate what the future may be expected to bring in the way of new scientific developments and new moral problems.
This book of original essays is the most comprehensive single volume ever published on animal minds and the ethics of our use of animals.

Contemporary debates on free will are numerous and multifaceted. According to compatibilists, it is possible for an agent to be determined in all her choices and actions and still be free. Incompatibilists, on the other hand, think that the existence of free will is incompatible with the truth of determinism. There are also two dominant conceptions of the nature of free will. According to the first, it is primarily a function of being able to do otherwise than one in fact does. The second approach focuses on issues of sourcehood, holding that free will is primarily a function of an agent being the source of her actions in a particular way. This book guides the student through all these debates, demarcating the different conceptions of free will, exploring the relationships between them, and examining how they relate to the debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists. In the process, it addresses a number of other views, including revisionism and free will scepticism. This is the ideal introduction to the contemporary debates for students at all levels.

Global Media Ethics is the first comprehensive cross-cultural exploration of the conceptual and practical issues facing media ethics in a global world. A team of leading journalism experts investigate the impact of major global trends on responsible journalism. * The first full-length, truly global textbook on media ethics * Explores how current global changes in media promote and inhibit responsible journalism * Includes relevant and timely ethical discussions based on major trends in journalism and global media * Questions existing frameworks in Media Ethics in light of the impact of global media * Contributors are leading experts in global journalism and communication

Patrick Riordan takes a different approach to the questions of global ethics by following the direction of questioning initially pioneered by Aristotle. For him the most basic question of ethics is 'What is the Good Life?' So in the context of contemporary global ethics the Aristotelian questioner wonders about the good life on a global scale. "Global Ethics and Global Common Goods" fills a gap caused by the neglect of the topic of the good in global ethics.Beginning by outlining answers to questions such as 'What is Good?' and 'Is there a highest good?', chapters follow on to demonstrate the value of a common good perspective in matters of universal human rights and their institutions and practices, the study of international relations and the construction of global institutions, debates about global justice between cosmopolitanism and nationalism and other forms of particularism, and of course debates about globalisation in economic affairs. Philosophical questions provoked by these debates are identified and pursued, such as the question of a common human nature which seems presupposed by the language of universal rights. The possibilities for politics on a world scale are part of the literature of the relevant disciplines, but the perspective of the common good adds a new and distinctive dimension to those debates. The concerns for global security and the challenges of managing conflict are also shown to benefit from a rereading in terms of the goods in common between participants in global political affairs.

Edited and revised specifically for this volume, here are the best papers from the Tenth National Conference on Business Ethics, sponsored by Bentley College's Center for Business Ethics. Throughout, the contributors emphasize the ethical dimensions of problems and issues that confront the financial services and accounting industries, issues that are also of critical importance to business generally. Included among the contributors are members of the academic community, lawyers, government officials, and financial services and accounting professionals, each with his or her own special perspective, but all focused on the central theme: the importance of ethics and its proper role in the way financial services and accounting are done. Throughtful, challenging reading, not only for academics but for finance and accounting professionals as well.

Part I examines the ethics of the fiduciary relationship between principals and agents, defining the nature of trust and helping readers understand the fiduciary responsibility and conflicts of interest characteristic to the industry. In Part II, the contributors look at specific issues in ethics and financial disclosure, with particular focus on nonprofit healthcare organizations, financial derivatives, and confidentiality in a professional context as representative cases. More cases are presented in Part III, examining a variety of situations and events, such as the BCCI affair and the failure of banks. Part IV offers lessons from the past and a look toward the future, with such topics as the ethics of financial derivatives in the history of economic thought and the development of moral reasoning and professional judgment of auditors in public practice.

Proclus's Commentary on the Republic of Plato contains in its fifth and sixth essays the only systematic analysis of the workings of the allegorical text to reach us from polytheist. In the context of defending Homer against the criticisms leveled by Socrates in the Republic, Proclus, a late-antique polytheist thinker, provides not only a rich selection of interpretive material, but also an analysis of Homer's polysemous text whose influence can be observed in the work of the founder of modern semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce. This first modern translation into English, with Greek text facing and limited commentary, makes it possible to appreciate the importance of Proclus in the history of both hermeneutics and semiotics

Empathy has for a long time, at least since the eighteenth century, been seen as centrally important in relation to our capacity to gain a grasp of the content of other people's minds, and predict and explain what they will think, feel, and do; and in relation to our capacity to respond to others ethically. In addition, empathy is seen as having a central role in aesthetics, in the understanding of our engagement with works of art and with fictional characters. A fuller understanding of empathy is now offered by the interaction of research in science and the humanities. Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives draws together nineteen original chapters by leading researchers across several disciplines, together with an extensive Introduction by the editors. The individual chapters reveal how important it is, in a wide range of fields of enquiry, to bring to bear an understanding of the role of empathy in its various guises. This volume offers the ideal starting-point for the exploration of this intriguing aspect of human life.

This volume offers a much needed shift of focus in the study of emotion in the history of philosophy. Discussion has tended to focus on the moral relevance of emotions, and (except in ancient philosophy) the role of emotions in cognitive life has received little attention. Thirteen new essays investigate the continuities between medieval and early modern thinking about the emotions, and open up a contemporary debate on the relationship between emotions, cognition, and reason, and the way emotions figure in our own cognitive lives. A team of leading philosophers of the medieval, renaissance, and early modern periods explore these ideas from the point of view of four key themes: the situation of emotions within the human mind; the intentionality of emotions and their role in cognition; emotions and action; the role of emotion in self-understanding and the social situation of individuals.

The Risk of Freedom presents an in-depth analysis of the philosophy of Jan Patocka, one of the most influential Central European thinkers of the twentieth century, examining both the phenomenological and ethical-political aspects of his work. In particular, Francesco Tava takes an original approach to the problem of freedom, which represents a recurring theme in Patocka's work, both in his early and later writings. Freedom is conceived of as a difficult and dangerous experience. In his deep analysis of this particular problem, Tava identifies the authentic ethical content of Patocka's work and clarifies its connections with phenomenology, history of philosophy, politics and dissidence. The Risk of Freedom retraces Patocka's philosophical journey and elucidates its more problematic and less evident traits, such as his original ethical conception, his political ideals and his direct commitment as a dissident.

Does heaven exist? If so, what is it like? And how does one get in? Throughout history, painters, poets, philosophers, pastors, and many ordinary people have pondered these questions. Perhaps no other topic captures the popular imagination quite like heaven.
Gary Scott Smith examines how Americans from the Puritans to the present have imagined heaven. He argues that whether Americans have perceived heaven as reality or fantasy, as God's home or a human invention, as a source of inspiration and comfort or an opiate that distracts from earthly life, or as a place of worship or a perpetual playground has varied largely according to the spirit of the age. In the colonial era, conceptions of heaven focused primarily on the glory of God. For the Victorians, heaven was a warm, comfortable home where people would live forever with their family and friends. Today, heaven is often less distinctively Christian and more of a celestial entertainment center or a paradise where everyone can reach his full potential.
Drawing on an astounding array of sources, including works of art, music, sociology, psychology, folklore, liturgy, sermons, poetry, fiction, jokes, and devotional books, Smith paints a sweeping, provocative portrait of what Americans-from Jonathan Edwards to Mitch Albom-have thought about heaven.

Reading Augustine presents concise, personal readings of St. Augustine of Hippo from leading philosophers and religion scholars. Augustine of Hippo knew that this fallen world is a place of sadness and suffering. In such a world, he determined that compassion is the most suitable and virtuous response. Its transformative powers could be accessed through the mind and its memories, through the healing of the Incarnation, and through the discernment of Christians who are forced to navigate through a corrupt and deceptive world. Susan Wessel considers Augustine's theology of compassion by examining his personal experience of loss and his reflections concerning individual and corporate suffering in the context of the human condition and salvation.

The variety of approaches to the concept of trust in philosophy reflects the fact that our worries are diverse, from the Hobbesian concern for the possibility of rational cooperation to Wittgenstein's treatment of the place of trust in knowledge. To speak of trust is not only to describe human action but also to take a perspective on it and to engage with it. Olli Lagerspetz breathes new life into the philosophical debate by showing how questions about trust are at the centre of any in-depth analyses of the nature of human agency and human rationality and that these issues, in turn, lie at the heart of philosophical ethics. Ideal for those grappling with these issues for the first time, Trust, Ethics and Human Reason provides a thorough and impassioned assessment of the concept of trust in moral philosophy.

Mass Moralizing: Marketing and Moral Storytelling examines the narratives of today's brand marketing, which largely focuses on creating an emotional attachment to a brand rather than directly promoting a product's qualities or features. Phil Hopkins explores these narratives' influence on how we think about ourselves and our moral possibilities, our cultural ideas about morality, and our relations to each other. He closely studies the relationship between three interrelated dynamics: the power of narrative in the construction of identity and world, the truth-telling pretenses of mass marketing, and the growth of moralizing as the primary moral discourse practice in contemporary consumer culture. Mass Moralizing scrutinizes the way marketing speaks to us in explicitly moralistic terms, significantly influencing how we think about ourselves and our moral possibilities.