This book presents a fresh exploration of happiness through the ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers. It introduces readers to the main currents of Greek ethical thought (Socratic living, Platonism, Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Scepticism, Stoicism, Cynicism) and takes a close look at characters such as Socrates, Diogenes and Alexander the Great. Yet Happiness and Greek Ethical Thought is much more than just a casual stroll through ancient thinking. It attempts to show how certain common themes in Greek thought (the role of reason as a guide for all actions, regard for virtue as a type of internal stability of character, recognition that ethics is not just a public but also a personal affair, etc.) are essential for living a happy life in any age. The author stresses that the Greek ethical ideal was principally integrative and suggests that the right conception of happiness involves integration at three different, but nested levels: personal, socio-political, and cosmic. He argues that, in many respects, the Greek integrative ideal, contrary to the hedonistic individualism that many pluralistic societies today at least implicitly advocate, is a much richer alternative that warrants honest reconsideration today.

Citizen Killings: Liberalism, State Policy and Moral Risk offers a ground breaking systematic approach to formulating ethical public policy on all forms of 'citizen killings', which include killing in self-defence, abortion, infanticide, assisted suicide, euthanasia and killings carried out by private military contractors and so-called 'foreign fighters'. Where most approaches to these issues begin with the assumptions of some or other general approach to ethics, Deane-Peter Baker argues that life-or-death policy decisions of this kind should be driven first and foremost by a recognition of the key limitations that a commitment to political liberalism places on the state, particularly the requirement to respect citizens' right to life and the principle of liberal neutrality. Where these principles come into tension Baker shows that they can in some cases be defused by way of a reasonableness test, and in other cases addressed through the application of what he calls the 'risk of harm principle'. The book also explores the question of what measures citizens and other states might legitimately take in response to states that fail to implement morally appropriate policies regarding citizen killings.

How can I know something? How can I convince someone of the rightness of my position? How does reality function? What is artistic creativity? What is the role of the state? It is well known that people from various cultures give dissimilar answers to such philosophical questions. After three decades in the cross-cultural study of ideas and values, Thomas Kasulis found that culture influences not only the answers to these questions, but often how one arrives at the answers. In generalizing cultural difference, Kasulis identifies two kinds of orientation: intimacy and integrity. Both determine how we think about relations among people and among things, and each is reasonable, effective, and consistent. Yet the two are so incompatible in their basic assumptions that they cannot successfully engage each other.

Cultural difference extends beyond nations. Cultural identities crystallize in relation to religion, occupation, race, gender, class. Rather than attempt to transcend cultural difference, Kasulis urges a deeper awareness of its roots by moving beyond mere cultural relativism toward a cultural bi-orientationality that will allow us to adapt ourselves to different cultural contexts as the situation demands.

Wonderfully clear and unburdened by jargon, Intimacy or Integrity is accessible to readers from a variety of perspectives and backgrounds. By analyzing the synergy between thought and culture, it increases our understanding of cultural difference and guides us in developing strategies for dealing with orientations different from our own.

From Plato to Macintyre, Ethics: The Key Thinkers surveys the history of Western moral philosophy by guiding students new to the subject through the work and ideas of the field's most important figures. With entries written by leading contemporary scholars, the book covers such thinkers as: Aristotle; Thomas Aquinas; David Hume; Immanuel Kant; J.S. Mill; Friedrich Nietzsche; The book explores the contributions of each thinker individually whilst also building a picture of how ethical thought has developed through their interactions. The book also includes guides to the latest further reading on each thinker.

The Egalitarian Conscience pays tribute to the highly influential work of Professor G. A. Cohen. Professor Cohen is a philosopher of international stature and tremendous achievement, who has been vital to the flourishing of egalitarian political philosophy. He has a significant body of work spanning issues of Marxism and distributive justice, consistently characterized by original ideas and ingenious arguments. The high standard of rigour he sets for progressive thinkers, particularly himself, has been a source of inspiration for colleagues and students alike. The volume honours Professor Cohen with first-rate essays on a number of significant and fascinating topics, reflecting the wide-ranging themes of Professor Cohen's work, but united in their concern for questions of social justice, pluralism, equality, and moral duty. The contributors are scholars of international stature: Joshua Cohen, Jon Elster, Susan Hurley, Will Kymlicka, Derek Parfit, John Roemer, T. M. Scanlon, Samuel Scheffler, Hillel Steiner, and Jeremy Waldron. There is an afterword by G. A. Cohen.

Joshua Gert presents an original and ambitious theory of the normative. Expressivism and non-reductive realism represent two very widely separated poles in contemporary discussions of normativity. But the domain of the normative is both large and diverse; it includes, for example, the harmful, the fun, the beautiful, the wrong, and the rational. It would be extremely surprising if either expressivism or non-reductive realism managed to capture all--or even the most important--phenomena associated with all of these notions. Normative Bedrock defends a response-dependent account of the normative that accommodates the kind of variation in response that some non-reductive realists downplay or ignore, but that also allows for the sort of straightforward talk of normative properties, normative truth, and substantive normative disagreement that expressivists have had a hard time respecting.
One of the distinctive features of Gert's approach is his reliance, throughout, on an analogy between color properties and normative properties. He argues that the appropriate response to a given instance of a normative property may often depend significantly on the perspective one takes on that instance: for example, whether one views it as past or future. Another distinctive feature of Normative Bedrock is its focus on the basic normative property of practical irrationality, rather than on the notion of a normative reason or the notion of the good. This simple shift of focus allow for a more satisfying account of the link between reasons and motivation, and helps to explain why and how some reasons can justify far more than they can require, and why we therefore need two strength values to characterize the normative capacities of practical reasons.

Oxford Studies in Metaethics is the only publication devoted exclusively to original philosophical work in the foundations of ethics. It provides an annual selection of much of the best new scholarship being done in the field. Its broad purview includes work being done at the intersection of ethical theory and metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. The essays included in the series provide an excellent basis for understanding recent developments in the field; those who would like to acquaint themselves with the current state of play in metaethics would do well to start here.

The idea of a virtue has traditionally been important in ethics, but only recently has gained attention as an idea that can explain how we ought to form beliefs as well as how we ought to act. Moral philosophers and epistemologists have different approaches to the idea of intellectual virtue; here, Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski bring work from both fields together for the first time to address all of the important issues. It will be required reading for anyone working in either field.

MAHAN ON THE WILL. This is an important work upon an important subject. The liberty of the human will I regard as a first truth. But like some other first truths, it has been extensively denied in theory. A most false and injurious philosophy of the will has extensively prevailed in the christian church, and has given birth to a brood of theological dogmas alike absurd and ruinous. The above named work was designed and is I think highly calculated to correct and rebuke the philosophy just alluded to. It is a fair, an able, and it seems to me a thorough statement and discussion of the subject, and a complete refutation of the dogma of a necessitated will. The book is small, cheap, and for a metaphysical discussion has the rare quality, of perspicuity. Since errorists every where teach and affirm the doctrine of a necessitated will, and since this is the stronghold of infidelity in all its forms, every youth and every person should acquaint himself with the truth and doctrine of the will and with the method of exposing error upon this subject. This treatise of President Mahan, presents the subject in a condensed form, and places it in a strong light. Every family should possess and make themselves familiar with this work. It needs only to be read and understood to be appreciated as a highly important work, and one which cannot fail to exert a most important influence in the cause of truth. Charles G. Finney, Dec. 1847. ASA MAHAN (1799-1889) was America's foremost Christian educator, reformer, philosopher, and pastor. He was founding president of two colleges and one university, where he was able to inspire numerous reforms, publish authoritative philosophical texts, and promote powerfulrevivals like his close associate Charles Finney. He led the way on all important fronts while being severely persecuted. He introduced the new curriculum later adopted by Harvard, was the first to instruct and grant liberal college degrees to white and colored women, advised Lincoln during the Civil War, and among many other remarkable achievements, was a father to the early evangelical and holiness movements.

A philosophical exploration of such subjects as terrorism, just war and pacifism, Andrew Fiala's book reflects on the moral demands that conflict makes on us. "Public War, Private Conscience" offers a philosophical reflection on the moral demands made upon us by war, providing a clear and accessible overview of the different ways of thinking about war. Engaging both with contemporary examples and historical ideas about war, the book offers unique analysis of issues relating to terrorism, conscience objection, just war theory and pacifism. Andrew Fiala examines the conflict between utilitarian and deontological points of view. On the one hand, wars are part of the project of public welfare, subject to utilitarian evaluation. On the other hand, war is also subject to deontological judgment that takes seriously the importance of private conscience and human rights. This book argues that the conflict between these divergent approaches is unavoidable. We are continually caught in the tragic conflict between these two values: public happiness and private morality. And it is in war that we find the conflict at its most obvious and most disturbing.

This book constructs a virtue-based ethics for medicine and health care. Beginning with the problem of relating virtues to principles, the authors develop a theory that this linkage lies in the goals of medicine and the nature of medical practice as a moral community. Specific virtues such as trust, compassion, prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and self-effacement are discussed in separate chapters. The book ends by examining how a virtue-based ethic of medicine makes a difference in analysing problems like caring for the poor, research on human subjects, whether the medical virtues can be taught in professional training, and how a refurbished philosophy of medicine can enhance medicine and health care in the future.

This book examines the ethical concepts which lie at the heart of journalism, including freedom, democracy, truth, objectivity, honesty and privacy. The common concern of the authors is to promote ethical conduct in the practice of journalism, as well as the quality of the information that readers and audience receive from the media.

Virtue Epistemology is a new movement receiving much recent attention from top epistemologists and ethicists; this volume reflects the best work in that vein. Included are unpublished articles by such eminent philosophers as Robert Audi, Simon Blackburn, Alvin Goldman, Christopher Hookway, Keith Lehrer, and Ernest Sosa.

This is a collection of writings by the late Lord Quinton, one of the wittiest and most versatile philosophers of his generation. The first part ranges over the last four hundred years of intellectual history, discussing such thinkers as Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Coleridge, Kant, Hegel, T. H. Green, Dewey, Quine, and Ayer. The subject of the second part of the volume is, broadly speaking, value in human society: Quinton discusses freedom, morality, politics, language, culture, and the relation between humans and animals. Together these writings demonstrate the enormous breadth of their author's learning, and the clarity, elegance, and urbanity of his style. Seven of the pieces are previously unpublished.

The question The Republic sets out to define is "What is justice?" Given the difficulty of this task, Socrates and his interlocutors are led into a discussion of justice in the city, which Socrates suggests may help them see justice in the person, but on a grander (and therefore easier to discuss) scale ("suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger," 368, trans. Jowett). Some critics (such as Julia Annas) have adhered to this premise that the dialogue's entire political construct exists to serve as an analogy for the individual soul, in which there are also various potentially competing or conflicting "members" that might be integrated and orchestrated under a just and productive "government."

This book argues that understanding truces is crucial for our ability to wind down wars. We have paid too much attention to the idea of permanent peace, yet few conflicts end in this way. The book describes how truce makers think, which truces can be morally justified and provides a philosophical history of truce making in the Western tradition.

Dana Kay Nelkin presents a simple and natural account of freedom and moral responsibility which responds to the great variety of challenges to the idea that we are free and responsible, before ultimately reaffirming our conception of ourselves as agents. Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility begins with a defense of the rational abilities view, according to which one is responsible for an action if and only if one acts with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. The view is compatibilist - that is, on the view defended, responsibility is compatible with determinism - and one of its striking features is a certain asymmetry: it requires the ability to do otherwise for responsibility when actions are praiseworthy, but not when they are blameworthy. In defending and elaborating the view, Nelkin questions long-held assumptions such as those concerning the relation between fairness and blame and the nature of so-called reactive attitudes such as resentment and forgiveness. Her argument not only fits with a metaphysical picture of causation - agent-causation - often assumed to be available only to incompatibilist accounts, but receives positive support from the intuitively appealing Ought Implies Can Principle, and establishes a new interpretation of freedom and moral responsibility that dovetails with a compelling account of our inescapable commitments as rational agents.

The Realm of Reason develops a new, general theory of what it is for a thinker to be entitled to form a given belief. The theory locates entitlement in the nexus of relations between truth, content, and understanding. Peacocke formulates three principles of rationalism that articulate this conception. The principles imply that all entitlement has a component that is justificationally independent of experience. The resulting position is thus a form of rationalism, generalized to all kinds of content.
To show how these principles are realized in specific domains, Peacocke applies the theory in detail to several classical problems of philosophy, including the nature of perceptual entitlement, induction, and the status of moral thought. These discussions involve an elaboration of the structure of entitlement in ways that have applications in many other areas of philosophy. He also relates the theory to classical and recent rationalist thought, and to current issues in the theory of meaning, reference and explanation. In the course of these discussions, he proposes a general theory of the a priori.
The focus of the work lies in the intersection of epistemology, metaphysics, and the theory of meaning, and will be of interest both to students and researchers in these areas, and to anyone concerned with the idea of rationality.

Can normative words like "good," "ought," and "reason" be defined in entirely non-normative terms? Confusion of Tongues argues that they can, advancing a new End-Relational theory of the meaning of this language as providing the best explanation of the many different ways it is ordinarily used. Philosophers widely maintain that analyzing normative language as describing facts about relations cannot account for special features of particularly moral and deliberative uses of normative language, but Stephen Finlay argues that the End-Relational theory systematically explains these on the basis of a single fundamental principle of conversational pragmatics. These challenges comprise the central problems of metaethics, including the connection between normative judgment and motivation, the categorical character of morality, the nature of intrinsic value, and the possibility of normative disagreement. Finlay's linguistic analysis has deep implications for the metaphysics, epistemology, and psychology of morality, as well as for the nature and possibility of normative ethical theory. Most significantly it supplies a nuanced answer to the ancient Euthyphro Question of whether we desire things because we judge them good, or vice versa. Normative speech and thought may ultimately be just a manifestation of our nature as intelligent animals motivated by contingent desires for various conflicting ends.

This philosophical work outlines a system of ethics based not merely on an individual's actions, but also the reasons that motivate his chosen actions. Duties are modes of obligations that persons possess within their respective families and communities. While some persons may recognize and accept their personal duties, other persons will refuse any form of duty. The main difference between these two kinds of individuals is based wholly on their motivations. Individuals who fulfill their personal duties will be motivated by some particular virtue, while individuals who reject their duties will be motivated by some particular vice. Therefore, the motivations behind every individual's will to act necessarily determines the ethical status of his character. Those who are guided by virtue will be mainly responsible for moral acts, while those who are guided by vice will be mainly responsible for immoral acts.

This book presents a new way to understand human-animal interactions. Offering a profound discussion of topics such as human identity, our relationship with animals and the environment, and our culture, the author channels the vibrant Italian traditions of humanism, materialism, and speculative philosophy. The research presents a dialogue between the humanities and the natural sciences. It challenges the separation and oppression of animals with a post-humanism steeped in the traditions of the Italian Renaissance. Readers discover a vision of the human as a species informed by an intertwining with animals. The human being is not constructed by an onto-poetic process, but rather by close relations with otherness. The human system is increasingly unstable and, therefore, more hybrid. The argument it presents interests scholars, thinkers, and researchers. It also appeals to anyone who wants to delve into the deep animal-human bond and its philosophical, cultural, political instances. The author is a veterinarian, ethologist, and philosopher. He uses cognitive science, zooanthropology, and philosophy to engage in a series of empirical, theoretical, and practice-based engagements with animal life. In the process, he argues that animals are key to human identity and culture at all levels.