As political discourse had been saturated with the ideas of "post-truth", "fake news", "epistemic bubbles", and "truth decay", it was no surprise that in 2017 The New Scientist declared: "Philosophers of knowledge, your time has come." Political epistemology has old roots, but is now one of the most rapidly growing and important areas of philosophy. The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology is an outstanding reference source to this exciting field, and the first collection of its kind. Comprising 41 chapters by an international team of contributors, it is divided into seven parts: Politics and truth: historical and contemporary perspectives Political disagreement and polarization Fake news, propaganda, and misinformation Ignorance and irrationality in politics Epistemic virtues and vices in politics Democracy and epistemology Trust, expertise, and doubt. Within these sections crucial issues and debates are examined, including: post-truth, disagreement and relativism, epistemic networks, fake news, echo chambers, propaganda, ignorance, irrationality, political polarization, virtues and vices in public debate, epistocracy, expertise, misinformation, trust, and digital democracy, as well as the views of Plato, Aristotle, Mozi, medieval Islamic philosophers, Mill, Arendt, and Rawls on truth and politics. The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology is essential reading for those studying political philosophy, applied and social epistemology, and politics. It is also a valuable resource for those in related disciplines such as international relations, law, political psychology, political science, communication studies, and journalism.

This volume brings together fourteen mostly previously published articles by the prominent Nietzsche scholar Maudemarie Clark. Clark's previous two books on Nietzsche focused on his views on truth, metaphysics, and knowledge, but she has published a great deal on Nietzsche's views on ethics and politics in article form. Putting those articles - many of which appeared in obscure venues - together in book form will allow readers to see more easily how her views fit together as a whole, exhibit important developments of her ideas, and highlight Clark's distinctive voice in Nietzsche studies. Clark provides an introduction tying her themes together and placing them in their broader context.

This book provides cross-cultural ethical exploration of sex robots and their social impact. What are the implications of sex robots and related technological innovations for society and culture? How should we evaluate the significance of sexual relations with robots that look like women, men or children? Critics argue that sex robots present a clear risk to real persons and a social degradation that will increase sexual violence, objectify women, encourage pedophilia, reinforce negative body images, increase forms of sexual dysfunction, and pass on sexually transmitted disease. Proponents judge robotic sexual companionship as just another step in the exploration of human desire. They see sex robots, and similar technology, such as virtual reality pornography, as providing autonomy affirming companionship for the lonely and a relatively harmless outlet for sexual fantasies that avoids the use of human prostitutes and thus reduces sexual victimization. Some appreciate sex robots as a social evil, others as a positive good, and still others as a harmless pastime. How we come to terms with such conceptual and moral concerns will have significant implications for society and the future of human relations. This book is of great interest to researchers in bioethics, human sexual behavior, AI ethics, and philosophy of sex.

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics is an annual forum for new work in normative ethical theory. Leading philosophers present original contributions to our understanding of a wide range of moral issues and positions, from analysis of competing approaches to normative ethics (including moral realism, constructivism, and expressivism) to questions of how we should act and live well. OSNE will be an essential resource for scholars and students working in moral philosophy.

In this comprehensive assessment of Kant's metaethics, Frederick Rauscher shows that Kant is a moral idealist rather than a moral realist and argues that Kant's ethics does not require metaphysical commitments that go beyond nature. Rauscher frames the argument in the context of Kant's non-naturalistic philosophical method and the character of practical reason as action-oriented. Reason operates entirely within nature, and apparently non-natural claims - God, free choice, and value - are shown to be heuristic and to reflect reason's ordering of nature. The book shows how Kant hesitates between a transcendental moral idealism with an empirical moral realism and a complete moral idealism. Examining every aspect of Kant's ethics, from the categorical imperative to freedom and value, this volume argues that Kant's focus on human moral agency explains morality as a part of nature. It will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, German idealism and intellectual history.

The problem of free will arises from ordinary, commonsense reflection. Shaun Nichols examines these ordinary attitudes from a naturalistic perspective. He offers a psychological account of the origins of the problem of free will. According to his account the problem arises because of two naturally emerging ways of thinking about ourselves and the world, one of which makes determinism plausible while the other makes determinism implausible. Although contemporary cognitive science does not settle whether choices are determined, Nichols argues that our belief in indeterminist choice is grounded in faulty inference and should be regarded as unjustified. However, even if our belief in indeterminist choice is false, it's a further substantive question whether that means that free will doesn't exist. Nichols argues that, because of the flexibility of reference, there is no single answer to whether free will exists. In some contexts, it will be true to say 'free will exists'; in other contexts, it will be false to say that. With this substantive background in place, Bound promotes a pragmatic approach to prescriptive issues. In some contexts, the prevailing practical considerations suggest that we should deny the existence of free will and moral responsibility; in other contexts the practical considerations suggest that we should affirm free will and moral responsibility. This allows for the possibility that in some contexts, it is morally apt to exact retributive punishment; in other contexts, it can be apt to take up the exonerating attitude of hard incompatibilism.

We rely on two different conceptions of morality. On the one hand, we think of morality as a correct action guide. Morality is accessed by taking up a critical, reflective point of view where our concern is with identifying the moral rules that would be the focus of the requiring activities of persons in a hypothetical social world whose participants were capable of accessing the justifications for everyone's endorsing just this set of rules. On the other hand, in doing virtually anything connected with morality-making demands, offering excuses, justifying choices, expressing moral attitudes, getting uptake on our resentments, and the like-we rely on social practices of morality and shared moral understandings that make our moral activities and attitudes intelligible to others. This second conception of morality, unlike the first, is not shaped by the aim of getting it right or the contrast between correct and merely supposed moral requirements. It is shaped by the moral aim of practicing morality with others within an actual, not merely hypothetical, scheme of social cooperation. If practices based on misguided moral norms seem not to be genuine morality under the first conception, merely hypothetical practices seem not to be the genuine article under the second conception. The premise of this book, which collects together nine previously published essay and a new introduction, is that both conceptions are indispensable. But exactly how is the moral theorist to go about working simultaneously with two such different conceptions of morality? The book's project is not to construct an overarching methodology for handling the two conceptions of morality. Instead, it is to provide case studies of that work being done.

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.

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.

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.

Exploring the environmental effects of animal agriculture, fishing, and hunting, Eating Earth exposes critical common ground between earth and animal advocacy. The first chapter (animal agriculture) examines greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, manure and dead zones, freshwater depletion, deforestation, predator control, land and useincluding the ranching industries public lands subsidies. Chapter two first examines whether or not the consumption of fish is healthy and outlines morally relevant aspects of fish physiology, then scrutinizes the fishing industry, documenting the silent collapse of ocean ecosystems and calling attention to the indiscriminate nature of hooks and nets, including the problem of bycatch and what this means for endangered species and fragile seascapes. Chapter three outlines the historic link between the U. S. Government, wildlife management, and hunters, then systematically unravels common beliefs about sport hunting, such as the belief that hunters are essential to wildlife conservation, that contemporary hunting qualifies as a tradition, and that hunting is merciful, economical, or rooted in fair chase. At the end of each chapter, Kemmerer examines possible solutions to problems presented, such as sustainable meats, organic and local, grass fed, aquaculture, new fishing technologies, and enhanced regulations. Eating Earth offers a concise examination of the environmental effects of dietary choice, clearly presenting the many reasons why dietary choice ought to be front and center for environmentalists. Kemmerers writing, supported by nearly 80 graphs and summary slides, is clear, straightforward, and punctuated with wry humor.

Death has long been a pre-occupation of philosophers, and this is especially so today. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Death collects 21 newly commissioned essays that cover current philosophical thinking of death-related topics across the entire range of the discipline. These include metaphysical topics-such as the nature of death, the possibility of an afterlife, the nature of persons, and how our thinking about time affects what we think about death-as well as axiological topics, such as whether death is bad for its victim, what makes it bad to die, what attitude it is fitting to take towards death, the possibility of posthumous harm, and the desirability of immortality. The contributors also explore the views of ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Epicurus on topics related to the philosophy of death, and questions in normative ethics, such as what makes killing wrong when it is wrong, and whether it is wrong to kill fetuses, non-human animals, combatants in war, and convicted murderers. With chapters written by a wide range of experts in metaphysics, ethics, and conceptual analysis, and designed to give the reader a comprehensive view of recent developments in the philosophical study of death, this Handbook will appeal to a broad audience in philosophy, particularly in ethics and metaphysics.