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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social issues > Ethical issues & debates > General
In the face of the world's disorders, moral concerns have provided a powerful ground for developing international as well as local policies. Didier Fassin draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela, and Palestine to explore the meaning of humanitarianism in the contexts of immigration and asylum, disease and poverty, disaster and war. He traces and analyzes recent shifts in moral and political discourse and practices -- what he terms "humanitarian reason"-- and shows in vivid examples how humanitarianism is confronted by inequality and violence. Deftly illuminating the tensions and contradictions in humanitarian government, he reveals the ambiguities confronting states and organizations as they struggle to deal with the intolerable. His critique of humanitarian reason, respectful of the participants involved but lucid about the stakes they disregard, offers theoretical and empirical foundations for a political and moral anthropology.
Quakerism began in England in the 1650s. George Fox, credited as leading the movement, had an experience of 1647 in which he felt he could hear Christ directly and inwardly without the mediation of text or minister. Convinced of the authenticity of this experience and its universal application, Fox preached a spirituality in which potentially all were ministers, all part of a priesthood of believers, a church levelled before the leadership of God. Quakers are a fascinating religious group both in their original 'peculiarity' and in the variety of reinterpretations of the faith since. The way they have interacted with wider society is a basic but often unknown part of British and American history. This handbook charts their history and the history of their expression as a religious community. This volume provides an indispensable reference work for the study of Quakerism. It is global in its perspectives and interdisciplinary in its approach whilst offering the reader a clear narrative through the academic debates. In addition to an in-depth survey of historical readings of Quakerism, the handbook provides a treatment of the group's key theological premises and its links with wider Christian thinking. Quakerism's distinctive ecclesiastical forms and practices are analysed, and its social, economic, political, and ethical outcomes examined. Each of the 37 chapters considers broader religious, social, and cultural contexts and provides suggestions for further reading and the volume concludes with an extensive bibliography to aid further research.
This volume brings together essential writings by the unjustly neglected nineteenth-century philosopher Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904). A prominent ethicist, feminist, champion of animal welfare, and critic of Darwinism and atheism, Cobbe was well known and highly regarded in the Victorian era. This collection of her work introduces contemporary readers to Cobbe and shows how her thought developed over time, beginning in 1855 with her Essay on Intuitive Morals, in which she set out her duty-based moral theory, arguing that morality and religion are indissolubly connected. This work provided the framework within which she addressed many theoretical and practical issues in her prolific publishing career. In the 1860s and early 1870s, she gave an account of human duties to animals; articulated a duty-based form of feminism; defended a unique type of dualism in the philosophy of mind; and argued against evolutionary ethics. Cobbe put her philosophical views into practice, campaigning for women's rights and for first the regulation and later the abolition of vivisection. In turn her political experiences led her to revise her ethical theory. From the 1870s onwards she increasingly emphasized the moral role of the emotions, especially sympathy, and she theorized a gradual historical progression in sympathy. Moving into the 1880s, Cobbe combatted secularism, agnosticism, and atheism, arguing that religion is necessary not only for morality but also for meaningful life and culture. Shedding light on Cobbe's philosophical perspective and its applications, this volume demonstrates the range, systematicity and philosophical character of her work and makes her core ethical theory and its central applications and developments available for teaching and scholarship.
David Ben-Gurion, (who was later the first Prime Minister of the State of Israel), when testifying before the British Royal (Peel) Commission in 1936, whose agenda was to decide on the future of the Land of Israel, declared "The Bible is our Mandate." Indeed, throughout the Bible right back to the time of the Patriarch Abraham, one can see that the Almighty promised the Land of Israel to the Jewish people. This is one of the points I stressed when giving my weekly sermons to my Synagogue over the course of over twenty years. The first section of the Bible is the Torah (Pentateuch), which is the Five Books of Moses. In addition to giving an early history of the Jewish people and the various commandments incumbent on a Jew, the Torah contains many lessons which can be applied to today's living. It was many of these lessons which constituted the contents of my sermons. These include the Jewish rights to the Land of Israel and the strict prohibition on foregoing any of these rights, and furthermore the imperative that the State of Israel be governed in accordance with the principle "The Land of Israel is for the Jewish people and must be governed according to the Torah." Unfortunately, these principles are not implemented in practice, and these points were often stressed in my sermons. Needless to add, there were many other lessons to be learned which I spoke about. One of them was the relationship which should pertain between man and his fellow man. Included in this is taking responsibility for one's actions and not passing the blame on to others. We find a number of occasions in the Torah where this was not done. As an example, Adam blamed Eve who in turn blamed the serpent for eating from the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. A further example is Aaron blaming the Jewish people when he made the Golden Calf, instead of taking the responsibility himself. Hospitality is another important quality which must be extended to all people without distinction. Abraham, already a very old man hurried to give hospitality to people even though he thought that they were idol-worshippers, and furthermore he made the members of his family participate in this hospitality. Kindness to animals is another lesson to be learned from the Torah. Rebekah gave the camels to drink after they came in from a long journey. In fact, it is forbidden to eat a meal until after one has fed one's animals. All this is not limited to physical actions, but also to not hurting the feelings of animals, such as not muzzling an ox when it is working in a field, nor ploughing with an ox and an ass together, since they are of different strengths. One is commanded to repay good by good, and a favour which has been given should never be forgotten however long a time may have passed. An example is the actions of Miriam in endangering her life by guarding Moses in the bulrushes. This was remembered as much as eighty years later. The above are just a few examples of the lessons I gave during the course of my sermons. In addition to my weekly Sabbath sermons, I would give sermons on the various Festivals which occurred throughout the year. I also delivered yearly a special sermon on the Sabbath before the Festival of Passover and on the Sabbath between the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement. All these sermons are to be found in this book.
Taking a unique approach that emphasizes careful reasoning, this cutting-edge reader is structured around twenty-seven landmark arguments that have provoked heated debates on current ethical issues. Contemporary Moral Arguments: Readings in Ethical Issues, Second Edition, opens with an extensive two-chapter introduction to moral reasoning and moral theories that provides students with the background necessary to analyze the arguments in the following chapters. Chapters 3-12 present seventy-six readings that are organized-in the conventional way-into ten topical areas: abortion; drugs and autonomy (new to this edition); euthanasia and assisted suicide; genetic engineering and cloning; the death penalty; war, terrorism, and torture; pornography; economic justice and health care; animal rights and environmental duties; and global obligations to the poor. Offering a special feature not found in other anthologies, the selections are also organized in an unconventional way, by argument, so that students can more easily see how philosophers have debated each other on these critical issues. Each argument opens with an introduction that outlines the argument's key points, provides context for it, and reviews some of the main responses to it. Each introduction is followed by two to four essays that present the argument's classic statement, critiques and defenses of it, and related debates. Contemporary Moral Arguments incorporates more pedagogical features than any other reader, including: * Essay questions-ideal for writing assignments-after each of the twenty-seven argument sections * Four types of boxes throughout: Facts and Figures, Public Opinion, Legalities, and Time Lines * A list of key terms at the end of each chapter, all defined in the glossary, and suggestions for further reading * An Instructor's Manual and Testbank on CD featuring chapter and reading summaries, lecture outlines in PowerPoint format, and essay and objective questions with an answer key * A Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/vaughn containing the same material as the Instructor's Manual along with such student resources as self-quizzes and flash cards NEW TO THIS EDITION: * An expanded introductory chapter on moral reasoning that dissects a sample essay step by step and includes exercises on arguments * A new chapter (4) on drugs and autonomy, including four classic articles * A new section on ethical egoism (in Chapter 2) and three additional readings in other chapters * Numerous updated text boxes that reflect the latest information on abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, genetic engineering, capital punishment, war and terrorism, and economic and global justice
A powerful, personal reflection on miscarriage from an acclaimed health and science journalist, drawing on original interviews and ground-breaking research to offer fresh insight into this underacknowledged subject. After losing four pregnancies with no obvious cause, Jennie Agg set out to understand why miscarriage remains such a profoundly misunderstood, under-researched and under-acknowledged experience. Part-memoir, part-scientific investigation, Life, Almost documents Agg's path to motherhood and her search for answers. Tracing each tentative step of her fifth pregnancy - as her body becomes a creature she does not wish to spook - Agg dismantles the myths that we unquestioningly accept about our reproductive lives- Why are we told miscarriage can't be prevented when half of all miscarriages are of perfectly healthy embryos? Why is it normal not to tell anyone you're pregnant for the first three months? Why don't we know why labour starts? Drawing on pioneering research and interviews with world-leading experts, Life, Almost is a ground-breaking book that will change how you think about miscarriage, and a moving reflection on grief and love at the edge of life as we understand it.
Modern statesmen and political theorists have long struggled to design institutions that will simultaneously respect individual freedom of religion, nurture religion's capacity to be a force for civic good and human rights, and tame religion's illiberal tendencies. Moving past the usual focus on personal free expression of religion, this illuminating book - written by renowned scholars of law and religion from the United States, England, and Israel - considers how the institutional design of both religions and political regimes influences the relationship between religious practice and activity and human rights. The authors examine how the organization of religious communities affects human rights, and investigate the scope of a just state's authority with respect to organized religion in the name of human rights. They explore the institutional challenges posed by, and possible responses to, the fraught relationship between religion and rights in the world today.
Food trucks announcing "halal" proliferate in many urban areas but how many non-Muslims know what this means, other than cheap lunch? Here Middle Eastern historians Febe Armanios and Bogac Ergene provide an accessible introduction to halal (permissible) food in the Islamic tradition, exploring what halal food means to Muslims and how its legal and cultural interpretations have changed in different geographies up to the present day. Historically, Muslims used food to define their identities in relation to co-believers and non-Muslims. Food taboos are rooted in the Quran and prophetic customs, as well as writings from various periods and geographical settings. As in Judaism and among certain Christian sects, Islamic food traditions make distinctions between clean and impure, and dietary choices and food preparation reflect how believers think about broader issues. Traditionally, most halal interpretations focused on animal slaughter and the consumption of intoxicants. Muslims today, however, must also contend with an array of manufactured food products-yogurts, chocolates, cheeses, candies, and sodas-filled with unknown additives and fillers. To help consumers navigate the new halal marketplace, certifying agencies, government and non-government bodies, and global businesses vie to meet increased demands for food piety. At the same time, blogs, cookbooks, restaurants, and social media apps have proliferated, while animal rights and eco-conscious activists seek to recover halal's more wholesome and ethical inclinations. Covering practices from the Middle East and North Africa to South Asia, Europe, and North America, this timely book is for anyone curious about the history of halal food and its place in the modern world.
Indigenous peoples and governments, industrialists and ecologists all use - or have at some stage to confront - the language of land rights. That language raises as many questions as it answers. Rights of the land or rights to the land? Rights of the individual or rights of the community? Even accepting that such rights exist, how to arbitrate between competing claims to land? Spanning as they do a wide range of intellectual territory, and their spheres of interest or activity ranging geographically from the Niger Delta to Papua New Guinea, from Quebec to the Eastern Cape, the contributors to this volume move across a range of different, and at times contradictory, approaches to land rights. Marilyn Strathern explores the divergent anthropologies of land, specifically regarding the equation of land and property. Cree lawyer and spokesman Romeo Saganash and Frank Brennan, an Australian lawyer and priest, explore the legal framework for land claims. The UN's International Decade of the Rights of Indigenous People recently ended in the failure of negotiating govemnents to accommodate, within international law, a 'collective' right to land. It is only by acknowledging this collective right to self-determination, both argue, that governments can come to terms with their indigenous populations and their own colonial past. Against the pleas of Brennan and Saganash, the Kenyan Richard Leakey, whose own history and politics is indissociable from that past, questions the whole notion of 'indigeneity'. The campaigner Ken Wiwa speaks too of the difficulties of redressing historical injusticeis, especially in a region - the Niger Delta - where the indigenous Ogoni have no written record of their losses. Finally William Beinart, a historian and advisor to the South African government, outlines some of the practical difficulties of land reform in that country.
Few today recognize the name Martin Niemöller, though many know his famous confession. In Then They Came For Me, Matthew Hockenos traces Niemöller's evolution from a Nazi supporter to a determined opponent of Hitler, revealing him to be a more complicated figure than previously understood. Born into a traditionalist Prussian family, Niemöller welcomed Hitler's rise to power as an opportunity for national rebirth. Yet when the regime attempted to seize control of the Protestant Church, he helped lead the opposition and was soon arrested. After spending the war in concentration camps, Niemöller emerged a controversial figure: to his supporters he was a modern Luther, while his critics, including President Harry Truman, saw him as an unrepentant nationalist. A nuanced portrait of courage in the face of evil, Then They Came For Me puts the question to us today: What would I have done?
How do we define compassion? Is it an emotional state, a motivation, a dispositional trait, or a cultivated attitude? How does it compare to altruism and empathy? Chapters in this Handbook present critical scientific evidence about compassion in numerous conceptions. All of these approaches to thinking about compassion are valid and contribute importantly to understanding how we respond to others who are suffering. Covering multiple levels of our lives and self-concept, from the individual, to the group, to the organization and culture, The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science gathers evidence and models of compassion that treat the subject of compassion science with careful scientific scrutiny and concern. It explores the motivators of compassion, the effect on physiology, the co-occurrence of wellbeing, and compassion training interventions. Sectioned by thematic approaches, it pulls together basic and clinical research ranging across neurobiological, developmental, evolutionary, social, clinical, and applied areas in psychology such as business and education. In this sense, it comprises one of the first multidisciplinary and systematic approaches to examining compassion from multiple perspectives and frames of reference. With contributions from well-established scholars as well as young rising stars in the field, this Handbook bridges a wide variety of diverse perspectives, research methodologies, and theory, and provides a foundation for this new and rapidly growing field. It should be of great value to the new generation of basic and applied researchers examining compassion, and serve as a catalyst for academic researchers and students to support and develop the modern world.
Biopolitics and posthumanism have been passe theories in the academy for a while now, standing on the unfashionable side of the fault line between biology and liberal thought. These days, if people invoke them, they do so a bit apologetically. But, as Ruth Miller argues, we should not be so quick to relegate these terms to the scholarly dustbin. This is because they can help to explain an increasingly important (and contested) influence in modern democratic politicsthat of nostalgia. Nostalgia is another somewhat embarrassing concept for the academy. It is that wistful sense of longing for an imaginary and unitary past that leads to an impossible future. And, moreover for this book, it is ordinarily considered bad for democracy. But, again, Miller says, not so fast. As she argues in this book, nostalgia is the mode of engagement with the world that allows thought and life to coexist, productively, within democratic politics. Miller demonstrates her theory by looking at nostalgia as a nonhuman mode of thought, embedded in biopolitical reproduction. To put this another way, she looks at mass democracy as a classically nonhuman affair and nostalgic, nonhuman reproduction as the political activity that makes this democracy happen. To illustrate, Miller draws on the politics surrounding embryos and the modernization of the Turkish alphabet. Situating this argument in feminist theories of biopolitics, this unusual and erudite book demonstrates that nostalgia is not as detrimental to democratic engagement as scholars have claimed.
During the past several decades, the fetus has been diversely represented in political debates, medical textbooks and journals, personal memoirs and autobiographies, museum exhibits and mass media, and civil and criminal law. Ourselves Unborn argues that the meanings people attribute to the fetus are not based simply on biological fact or theological truth, but are in fact strongly influenced by competing definitions of personhood and identity, beliefs about knowledge and authority, and assumptions about gender roles and sexuality. In addition, these meanings can be shaped by dramatic historical change: over the course of the twentieth century, medical and technological changes made fetal development more comprehensible, while political and social changes made the fetus a subject of public controversy. Moreover, since the late nineteenth century, questions about how fetal life develops and should be valued have frequently intersected with debates about the authority of science and religion, and the relationship between the individual and society. In examining the contested history of fetal meanings, Sara Dubow brings a fresh perspective to these vital debates.
An urgent primer on race and racism, from the host of the viral hit video series “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man”. “You cannot fix a problem you do not know you have.” So begins Emmanuel Acho in his essential guide to the truths Americans need to know to address the systemic racism that has recently electrified protests in all fifty states. “There is a fix,” Acho says. “But in order to access it, we’re going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations.” In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are afraid to ask―yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than ever. With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and “reverse racism.” In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both. He asks only for the reader’s curiosity―but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight.
In this volume, Stephen M. Gardiner and David A. Weisbach present arguments for and against the relevance of ethics to global climate policy. Gardiner argues that climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue, since it is an early instance of a distinctive challenge to ethical action (the perfect moral storm), and ethical concerns (such as with justice, rights, political legitimacy, community and humanity's relationship to nature) are at the heart of many of the decisions that need to be made. Consequently, climate policy that ignores ethics is at risk of "solving " the wrong problem, perhaps even to the extreme of endorsing forms of climate extortion. This is especially true of policy based on narrow forms of economic self-interest. By contrast, Weisbach argues that existing ethical theories are not well suited to addressing climate change. As applied to climate change, existing ethical theories suffer from internal logical problems and suggest infeasible strategies. Rather than following failed theories or waiting indefinitely for new and better ones, Weisbach argues that central motivation for climate policy is straightforward: it is in their common interest for people and nations to agree to policies that dramatically reduce emissions to prevent terrible harms.
Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption presents an innovative reinterpretation of the forces that have shaped the remarkable growth of ethical consumption. * Develops a theoretically informed new approach to shape our understanding of the pragmatic nature of ethical action in consumption processes * Provides empirical research on everyday consumers, social networks, and campaigns * Fills a gap in research on the topic with its distinctive focus on fair trade consumption * Locates ethical consumption within a range of social theoretical debates -on neoliberalism, governmentality, and globalisation * Challenges the moralism of much of the analysis of ethical consumption, which sees it as a retreat from proper citizenly politics and an expression of individualised consumerism
In 2001 the Human Genome Project succeeded in mapping the DNA of humans. This landmark accomplishment launched the field of genomics, the integrated study of all the genes in the human body and the related biomedical interventions that can be tailored to benefit a person's health. Today genomics, part of a larger movement toward personalized medicine, is poised to revolutionize health care. By cross-referencing an individual's genetic sequence - their genome - against known elements of "Big Data," elements of genomics are already being incorporated on a widespread basis, including prenatal disease screening and targeted cancer treatments. With more innovations soon to arrive at the bedside, the promise of the genomics revolution is limitless. This entry in the What Everyone Needs to Know series offers an authoritative resource on the prospects and realities of genomics and personalized medicine. As this science continues to alter traditional medical paradigms, consumers are faced with additional options and more complicated decisions regarding their health care. This book provides the essential information everyone needs.
This book offers insights and perspectives from a study of "Cultural Encounters in Intervention Against Violence" (CEINAV) in four EU-countries. Seeking a deeper understanding of the underpinnings of intervention practices in Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom, the team explored variations in institutional structures and traditions of law, policing, and social welfare. Theories of structural inequality and ethics are discussed and translated into practice. Using a shared qualitative methodology, space was created to listen to professionals discussing the challenges of intervention and as well to hear voices of women who had escaped domestic violence or trafficking for sexual exploitation and of young people who had been taken into care due to abuse or neglect. Voices of professionals as well as of women and young people who have experienced intervention illuminate how and why practices may differ. The authors examine how existing theories can illuminate complex inequalities or encompass the experiences of minorities against the background of European colonial history, and what streams of ethical theory apply to the dilemmas and challenges of intervention practice. Analytical descriptions of the legal-institutional frameworks for each of the three forms of violence set the stage for comparison. Drawing on a rich store of empirical data, five chapters discuss key issues facing policy-makers and practitioners seeking effective strategies of intervention that can diminish violence while strengthening the agency of women and children. Unique among comparative studies, CEINAV integrated creative art workshops into the research and involved both professionals and survivors of violence in the process. "Reflections" include a discussion of different intervention cultures in Europe, alongside working with different voices and making cultural encounters visible through art. Overall the authors argue that overcoming violence cannot be achieved by standardising procedure but require an ethical foundation, for which they offer a proposal.
It seems like every day society faces a new ethical challenge raised by a scientific innovation. Human genetic engineering, stem cell research, face transplantation, synthetic biology - all were science fiction only a few decades ago, but now are all reality. How do we as a society decide whether these technologies are ethical? For decades professional bioethicists have served as mediators between a busy public and its decision-makers, helping people understand their own ethical concerns, framing arguments, discrediting illogical claims, and supporting promising ones. These bioethicists play an instrumental role in guiding governments' ethical policy decisions, consulting for hospitals faced with vital decisions, and advising institutions that conduct research on humans. Although the bioethics profession has functioned effectively for many years, it is now in crisis. Policy-makers are less inclined to take the advice of bioethics professionals, with many observers saying that bioethics debates have simply become partisan politics with dueling democratic and republican bioethicists. While this crisis is contained to the task of recommending ethical policy to the government, there is risk that it will spread to the other tasks conducted by bioethicists. To understand how this crisis came about and to arrive at a solution, John H. Evans closely examines the history of the bioethics profession. Bioethics debates were originally dominated by theologians, but came to be dominated by the emerging bioethics profession due to the subtle and slow involvement of the government as the primary consumer of bioethical arguments. After the 1980s, however, the views of the government changed, making bioethical arguments less legitimate. Exploring the sociological processes that lead to the evolution of bioethics to where it is today, Evans proposes a radical solution to the crisis. Bioethicists must give up its inessential functions, change the way they make ethical arguments, and make conscious and explicit steps toward re-establishing the profession's legitimacy as a mediator between the public and government decision-makers.
Im September 1968 hielt ich meine erste Ansprache als Prasident der Weltbank anlasslich der Jahresversammlung des Internationalen Wahrungsfonds und der Weltbank. Da- mals sagte ich: "Das rasche Bevoelkerungswachstum ist eines der groessten Hindernisse fur die wirtschaftliche und soziale Entwicklung unserer Mitgliedsstaaten." Das war meine UEberzeugung im Jahre 1968. Und so denke ich noch heute. In den 24 Jahren, die mittlerweile ver- gangen sind, wuchs die Weltbevoelkerung schneller als je zu- vor -von 3,4 Milliarden auf 5,4 Milliarden Menschen; das ist eine Zunahme von etwa sechzig Prozent. Mit fast zwei Pro- zent pro Jahr ist die Wachstumsrate noch immer sehr hoch. Selbst wenn die Geburtenraten weiterhin so zuruckgehen, wie dies gegenwartig der Fall ist, wird die Weltbevoelkerung wahrend der nachsten dreissig Jahre um drei Milliarden Menschen zunehmen. Ist dies ein Grund zur Beunruhigung? Fur viele liegt die Antwort nicht klar auf der Hand. Trotz der zwei Milliarden Menschen, die in den letzten 25 Jahren hinzugekommen sind, koennen die Entwicklungslan- der, wo heute achtzig Prozent aller Menschen der Erde le- ben, bemerkenswerte wirtschaftliche und soziale Fortschrit- te verzeichnen: Der Pro kopf-Verbrauch stieg um fast siebzig Prozent, die Sauglings- und Kindersterblichkeit hat ab- genommen, die Alphabetisierungsraten sind hoeher, der durchschnittliche Ernahrungsstand der Menschen hat sich verbessert, und die Lebenserwartung ist gestiegen.
Everyone knows that transplantation can save and transform lives, but thousands die every year on waiting lists because there are not enough organs available. If more people could be persuaded to donate, more lives could be saved. But is individual reluctance to donate the root of the problem? Individual choices are made against the background of prevailing laws, conventions and institutions, and many of those present direct or indirect obstacles to organ procurement, from both the living and the dead. If any of those cannot be justified, the deaths they cause are similarly unjustified. In The Ethics of Transplants, Janet Radcliffe Richards, a leading moral philosopher and author of The Sceptical Feminist and Human Nature after Darwin, casts a sharp critical eye over these institutional barriers to organ procurement, and the logic of the arguments offered in their defence. Her incisive reasoning forces us to confront the implications of unexamined intuitions, leads to several unexpected conclusions, and in doing so demonstrates the crucial importance of clear thinking in public debate. Originally published in hardback as The Ethics of Transplants.
In 1976, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gregg v. Georgia that the death penalty was constitutional if it complied with certain specific provisions designed to ensure that it was reserved for the 'worst of the worst.' The same court had rejected the death penalty just four years before in the Furman decision because it found that the penalty had been applied in a capricious and arbitrary manner. The 1976 decision ushered in the 'modern' period of the US death penalty, setting the country on a course to execute over 1,400 inmates in the ensuing years, with over 8,000 individuals currently sentenced to die. Now, forty years after the decision, the eminent political scientist Frank Baumgartner along with a team of younger scholars (Marty Davidson, Kaneesha Johnson, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Colin Wilson) have collaborated to assess the empirical record and provide a definitive account of how the death penalty has been implemented. Each chapter addresses a precise empirical question and provides evidence, not opinion, about whether how the modern death penalty has functioned. They decided to write the book after Justice Breyer issued a dissent in a 2015 death penalty case in which he asked for a full briefing on the constitutionality of the death penalty. In particular, they assess the extent to which the modern death penalty has met the aspirations of Gregg or continues to suffer from the flaws that caused its rejection in Furman. To answer this question, they provide the most comprehensive statistical account yet of the workings of the capital punishment system. Authoritative and pithy, the book is intended for both students in a wide variety of fields, researchers studying the topic, and-not least-the Supreme Court itself.
A TIMES BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS BOOK OF THE YEAR The award-winning Financial Times columnist exposes the threat that Big Tech poses to our democracies, our economies and ourselves 'Powerful' Sunday Times Google and Facebook receive 90% of the world's news advertising spend. Amazon takes half of all e-commerce in the US. Google and Apple operating systems run on all but 1% of cell phones globally. And 80% of corporate wealth is now held by 10% of companies - the digital titans. How did these once-idealistic and innovative companies come to manipulate elections, violate our privacy and pose a threat to the fabric of our democracy? Through her skilled reporting and unparalleled access, Rana Foroohar reveals the true extent to which the 'FAANG's (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google) crush or absorb competitors, hijack our personal data and mental space and offshore their exorbitant profits. What's more, she shows how these threats to our democracies, livelihoods and minds are all intertwined. Yet Foroohar also lays out a plan for how we can resist, creating a framework that fosters innovation while protecting us from the dark side of digital technology. 'A masterful critique' Observer 'Insightful and powerfully argued' Daily Mail 'Essential reading ... whip-smart' Niall Ferguson 'Laser vision and trenchant business analysis' Shoshana Zuboff
Rosi Braidotti's nomadic theory outlines a sustainable modern subjectivity as one in flux, never opposed to a dominant hierarchy yet intrinsically other, always in the process of becoming, and perpetually engaged in dynamic power relations both creative and restrictive. Nomadic theory offers an original and powerful alternative for scholars working in cultural and social criticism and has, over the past decade, crept into continental philosophy, queer theory, and feminist, postcolonial, techno-science, media, and race studies, as well as into architecture, history, and anthropology. This collection provides a core introduction to Braidotti's nomadic theory and its innovative formulations, which playfully engage with Deleuze, Foucault, Irigaray, and a host of political and cultural issues. Arranged thematically, essays begin with such concepts as sexual difference and embodied subjectivity and follow with explorations in technoscience, feminism, postsecular citizenship, and the politics of affirmation. Braidotti develops a distinctly positive critical theory that rejuvenates the experience of political scholarship. Inspired yet not confined by Deleuzian vitalism, with its commitment to the ontology of flows, networks, and dynamic transformations, she emphasizes affects, imagination, and creativity and the politics of radical immanence. Incorporating ideas from Nietzsche and Spinoza as well, Braidotti establishes a critical-theoretical framework equal parts critique and creation. Ever mindful of the perils of defining difference in terms of denigration and the related tendency to subordinate sexualized, racialized, and naturalized others, she explores the eco-philosophical implications of nomadic theory, feminism, and the irreducibility of sexual difference and sexuality. Her dialogue with technoscience is crucial to nomadic theory, which deterritorializes the established understanding of what counts as human, along with our relationship to animals, the environment, and changing notions of materialism. Keeping her distance from the near-obsessive focus on vulnerability, trauma, and melancholia in contemporary political thought, Braidotti promotes a politics of affirmation that has the potential to become its own generative life force.
" Against Management" argues that management is increasingly being
seen as a problem, and not a solution. Martin Parker argues that
managing is not the only way to organize and that managerialism is
a global form of ideology, which is being used to justify
considerable cruelty and inequality. He also suggests that, in a
variety of places, an odd collection of people seem to be coming to
similar conclusions. It is possible to identify cracks in the religion of
managerialism as some of its converts begin to lapse and others
intensify their protest. In order to illustrate his argument,
Parker draws from a wide variety of sources - anti-corporate
activism; books and films which use management as their backdrop;
the movement for business ethics and corporate social
responsibility; as well as critical management studies and general
social theories of the present. Parker's overall argument is that we can see the beginnings of a
cultural shift in the image of management and that this is a
significant historical change. Perhaps most importantly, it opens
up the possibility of exploring non-managerial alternatives to
contemporary assumptions about organizing. "Against Management"
deliberately attempts to blur the boundaries between academic and
popular writing, and encourages some radical questioning of the
common sense that tells us that we need management, managers and
management schools. This will be essential reading for second-year undergraduates and above in business and management studies (including MBA), sociology and cultural studies. |
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