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.

Promises and agreements are everywhere; we make, receive, keep, and break them on a daily basis. The quest to understand these social practices is integral to understanding ourselves as social creatures. The study of promises and agreements is enjoying a renaissance in many areas of social philosophy, including philosophy of language, action theory, normative ethics, value theory, and legal philosophy. This volume is the first collection of philosophical papers on promises and agreements, bringing together sixteen original self-standing contributions to the philosophical literature. The contributors highlight some of the more interesting aspects of the ubiquitous social phenomena of promises and agreements from different philosophical perspectives.

Combining deep moral argument with extensive factual inquiry, Richard Miller constructs a new account of international justice. Though a critic of demanding principles of kindness toward the global poor and an advocate of special concern for compatriots, he argues for standards of responsible conduct in transnational relations that create vast unmet obligations. Governments, firms and people in developed countries, above all, the United States, by failing to live up to these responsibilities, take advantage of people in developing countries.
Miller's proposed standards of responsible conduct offer answers to such questions as: What must be done to avoid exploitation in transnational manufacturing? What framework for world trade and investment would be fair? What duties do we have to limit global warming? What responsibilities to help meet basic needs arise when foreign powers steer the course of development? What obligations are created by uses of violence to sustain American global power?
Globalizing Justice provides new philosophical foundations for political responsibility, a unified agenda of policies for responding to major global problems, a distinctive appraisal of 'the American empire', and realistic strategies for a global social movement that helps to move humanity toward genuine global cooperation.
"A work of great political urgency. The theoretical position ... is fresh and original ... No other recent book on Miller's subject displays a similar combination of philosophical imagination and deep engagement in the realities of global political and economic life."
Charles Beitz, Princeton University, The Idea of Human Rights
"Miller breaks a new path. ... a superb example of applied ethics. Its recommendations cannot be ignored by those of us who are critical of American foreign policy, but do not know exactly what alternative to advocate." John Roemer, Yale University

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

Contemporary philosophers frequently assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism-certainly not before the break of Der Pantheismusstreit, or within the Critique of Pure Reason. Offering an alternative reading of key pre-critical texts and to some of the Critique's most central chapters, Omri Boehm challenges this common assumption. He argues that Kant not only is committed to Spinozism in early essays such as "The One Possible Basis" and "New Elucidation," but also takes up Spinozist metaphysics as Transcendental Realism's most consistent form in the Critique of Pure Reason. The success -- or failure -- of Kant's critical projects must be evaluated in this light. Boehm here examines The Antinomies alongside Spinoza's Substance Monism and his theory of freedom. Similarly, he analyzes the refutation of the Ontological Argument in parallel with Spinoza's Causa-sui. More generally, Boehm places the Critique of Pure Reason's separation of Thought from Being and Is from Ought in dialogue with the Ethics' collapse of Being, Is and Ought into Thought.

"This leads to my definition of life. In many ways, it is quite simple: It is using your talents to, in some small way, make a difference in this world. Whether it's working with the environment, or our educational system, or those with physical or mental challenges, or those in the dawn or twilight of their lives, meaning is achieved by working towards and leaving behind something of value to the next generation. It matters little whether your aspiration or dream was realized: we'll never have world peace, or feed the hungry, or avoid catastrophic diseases or illnesses. What matters is that you tried, that you worked to make the world a better place. What matters is that, when you look back over your life, you can say that you fought the good fight, that you did what was right, and that you made a difference in this world. "

In "The Meaning of Life," author Dean Gualco tackles an assortment of questions that many of us have asked at one point or other: Why are we here? What is our purpose? How does one lead a decent and honorable life? Divided into five sections, "The Meaning of Life" seeks to provide the answers. With discussions that include determining what you stand for, doing the best with what you have, and living life with the knowledge that it goes by in a blink, Gualco provides a thought-provoking study of an issue that has perplexed man for centuries.

Henry Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics is one of the most important books in the history of moral philosophy. But it has not hitherto received the kind of sustained scholarly attention its stature merits. David Phillips aims in Sidgwickian Ethics to do something that has (surprisingly) not been done before: to interpret and evaluate the central argument of the Methods, in a way that brings out the important conceptual and historical connections between Sidgwick's views and contemporary moral philosophy.
Sidgwick distinguished three basic methods: utilitarianism, egoism, and dogmatic intuitionism. And he focused on two conflicts: between utilitarianism and dogmatic intuitionism and between utilitarianism and egoism. Sidgwick believed he could largely resolve the conflict between utilitarianism and dogmatic intuitionism, but could not resolve the conflict between utilitarianism and egoism. Phillips suggests that the best way to approach Sidgwick's ideas is to start with his views on these two conflicts, and with the metaethical and epistemological ideas on which they depend. Phillips interprets and largely defends Sidgwick's non-naturalist metaethics and moderate intuitionist moral epistemology. But he argues for a verdict on the two conflicts different from Sidgwick's own. Phillips claims that Sidgwick is less successful than he thinks in resolving the conflict between utilitarianism and dogmatic intuitionism, and that Sidgwick's treatment of the conflict between utilitarianism and egoism is more successful than he thinks in that it provides the model for a plausible view of practical reason.
Phillips's book will be of interest to two different groups of readers: to students seeking a brief introduction to Sidgwick's most important ideas and a guidebook to the Methods, and to scholars in ethics and the history of ideas concerned with Sidgwick's seminal contribution to moral philosophy.

On the Intrinsic Value of Everything is an illuminating introduction to fundamental questions in ethics. How--and to what--we assign value, whether it is to events or experiences or objects or people, is central to ethics. Something is intrinsically valuable only if it would be valued for its own sake by all fully informed, properly functioning persons. Davison defends the controversial view that everything that exists is intrinsically valuable to some degree. If only some things are intrinsically valuable, what about other things? Where and how do we draw the cutoff point? If only living creatures are intrinsically valuable, what does this imply for how we value the environment? If everything has intrinsic value, what practical implications does this have for how we live our lives? How does this view fit with the traditional theistic idea that God is the source of goodness and truth? Both critics and proponents of the concept of intrinsic value will find something of interest in this careful investigation of the basic value structure of the world.

Motive and Rightness is the first book-length attempt to answer the question: Does the motive of an action ever make a difference to whether that action is morally right or wrong? Steven Sverdlik argues that the answer is yes. He examines the major contemporary moral theories to see if they can provide a plausible account of the relevance of motives to rightness and wrongness, and argues that consequentialism gives a better account of these matters than Kantianism or certain important forms of virtue ethics. In carrying out the investigation Sverdlik presents an analysis of the nature of motives, and he considers their relations to normative judgments and intentions. A chapter is devoted to analyzing the extent to which motives are 'available' to rational agents, and the importance of feelings and unconscious motives. Historical figures such as Kant, Bentham, Mill and Ross are discussed, as well as contemporary writers like Korsgaard, Herman, Hurka, Slote and Hursthouse. Motive and Rightness offers an original interweaving of ethical theory, both historical and contemporary, with moral psychology, action theory, and psychology.

Exploring the rupture between Wittgenstein's early and late phases, Michael Smith provides an original re-assessment of the metaphysical consistencies that exist throughout his divergent texts. Smith shows how Wittgenstein's criticism of metaphysics typically invoked the very thing he was seeking to erase. Taking an alternative approach to the inherent contradiction in his work, the 'problem of metaphysics', as Smith terms it, becomes the organizing principle of Wittgenstein's thought rather than something to overcome. This metaphysical thread enables further reflection on the poetic nature of Wittgenstein's philosophy as well as his preoccupation with ethics and aesthetics as important factors mostly absent from the secondary literature. The turn to aesthetics is crucial to a re-assessment of Wittgenstein's legacy, and is done in conjunction with an innovative analysis of Nietzsche's critique of Kantian aesthetics and Kant's 'judgments of taste'. The result is a unique discussion of the limits and possibilities of metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics and the task of the philosopher more generally.

In his Essais, Montaigne stresses that his theoretical interest in philosophy goes hand in hand with its practicality. In fact, he makes it clear that there is little reason to live our lives according to doctrine without proof that others have successfully done so. Understanding Montaigne's philosophical thought, therefore, means not only studying the philosophies of the great thinkers, but also the characters and ways of life of the philosophers themselves. The focus of Montaigne and the Lives of the Philosophers: Life Writing and Transversality in the Essais is how Montaigne assembled the lives of the philosophers on the pages of his Essais in order to grapple with two fundamental aims of his project: first, to transform the teaching of moral philosophy, and next, to experiment with a transverse construction of his self. Both of these objectives grew out of a dialogue with the structure and content in the life writing of Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius, authors whose books were bestsellers during the essayist's lifetime.

Jeremy Bentham's law of marriage is firmly based on the principle of utility, which claims that all human actions are governed by a wish to gain pleasure and avoid pain, and on the proposition that men and women are equal. He wrote in a late eighteenth century context of Enlightenment debate about marriage and the family. As such his contemporaries were Hume, Locke and Milton; Wollstonecraft and More. These were the turbulent years leading to the French Revolution and it is in this milieu that Mary Sokol seeks to rediscover the historical Bentham. Instead of regarding his thought as timeless, she considers Bentham's attitude to the reform of marriage law and plans for the social reform of marriage, placing both his life and work in the philosophical and historical context of his time.

The philosophy of Ayn Rand has had a role equal or greater than that of Milton Friedman or F.A. Hayek in shaping the contemporary neo-liberal consensus. Its impact was powerful on architects of Reaganomics such as Alan Greenspan, former Director of the World Bank, and the new breed of American industrialists who developed revolutionary information technologies in Silicon Valley. But what do we really know of Rand's philosophy? Is her gospel of selfishness really nothing more than a reiteration of a quintessentially American "rugged individualism"? This book argues that Rand's philosophy can in fact be traced back to a moment, before World War I, when the work of a now-forgotten German philosopher called Max Stirner possessed an extraordinary appeal for writers and artists across Europe. The influence of Stirnerian Egoism upon that phase of intense creative innovation we now call Modernism was seminal. The implications for our understanding of Modernism are profound - so too for our grasp of the "cultural logic of late capitalism". This book presents the reader with a fresh perspective on the Modernist classics, as well as introducing less familiar art and writing that is only now beginning to attract interest in the West. It arrives at a fresh and compelling re-evaluation of Modernism: revealing its selfish streak.