Descartes s concern with the proper method of belief formation is evident in the titles of his works e.g., "The Search after Truth," "The Rules for the Direction of the Mind" and "The Discourse on Method of rightly conducting one s reason and seeking the truth in the sciences." It is most apparent, however, in his famous discussions, both in the "Meditations" and in the "Principles," of one particularly noteworthy source of our doxastic errors namely, the misuse of one s will. What is not widely recognized, let alone appreciated and understood, is the relationship between his concern with belief formation and his concern with virtue. In fact, few seem to realize that Descartes regards doxastic errors as "moral" errors and as "sins" both because such errors are intrinsically vicious and because they entail notably deleterious social consequences.

"Reforming the Art of Living" seeks to rectify this rather common oversight in two ways. First, it aims to elucidate the nature of Descartes s account of virtuous belief formation. Second, it aims both (i) to illuminate the social significance of Descartes s philosophical program as it relates to the understanding and practice not of science, but of religion and (ii) to develop a kind of Leibnizian critique of this aspect of his program. More specifically, it aims to show that Descartes s project is dangerous, insofar as it is subversive not only of traditional Christianity but also of other traditional forms of religion, both in theory and in practice."

A book that combines moral and political philosophy with traditions of activism and literature in a background of scientific knowledge and interpretation to build a comprehensive picture of an ecological humanity.

This book presents an anti-intellectualist view of how the cognitive-mental dimension of human intellect is rooted in and interwoven with our embodied-internal components including emotion, perception, desire, etc., by investigating practical forms of thinking such as deliberation, planning, decision-making, etc. With many thought-provoking statements, the book revises some classical notions of rationality with new interpretation: we are "rational animals", which means we have both rational capabilities, such as calculation, evaluation, justification, etc., and more animal aspects, like desire, emotion, and the senses. According to the traditional position of rationalism, we use well-grounded reason as the fundamental basis of our actions. But this book argues that we simply perform our practical intellect intuitively and spontaneously, just like playing music. By this the author turns the dominant metaphor of "architecture" in understanding of human rationality to that of "music-playing". This book presents a groundbreaking and compelling critique of today's pervasively reflective-intellectual culture, just as Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor and other philosophers diagnose, and makes any detached notion of rationality and formalized understanding of human intellect highly problematic.Methodologically, it not only reconciles the phenomenological-hermeneutic tradition with analytical approaches, but also integrates various theories, such as moral psychology, emotional studies, action theory, decision theory, performativity studies, music philosophy, tacit knowledge, collective epistemology and media theory. Further, its use of everyday cases, metaphors, folk stories and references to movies and literature make the book easy to read and appealing for a broad readership.

New scientific and technological developments challenge us to reconsider our moral world order. This book offers an original philosophical approach to this issue: it makes a distinctive contribution to the development of a relational approach to moral status by re-defining the problem in a social and phenomenological way.

"Democracy and Education" is one of John Dewey's most famous classical works and is a landmark of progressive theory. He drove hard to develop strategies and methods for training students for social responsibility. Dewey is not only a giant of modern educational theory but of progressive humanitarian thought. He believed that democracy was both a means and an end to building a just society. In "Freedom and Culture" Dewey believed that humankind could keep a firm grip on it's destiny only if critical intelligence of the scientific method and it's democratic counterpart were emphasized and promoted. Freedom of inquiry, speech, cultural pluralism and a willingness to co-operate in the pursuit of shared values and ideals would be the springboard for social development. A Collector's Edition.

Lisa Bellantoni argues that contemporary bioethics divides into two logically incommensurable positions: a cult of rights, which identifies the worth of human life with our autonomy, and a cult of life, which identifies human worth with the possession of a soul, and thereby, of human dignity.

The study of literature and the environment evokes and promotes this highly original eco-critical collection and its contributions to evaluating the preservation of nature and human attachment and to situate it at a local, communitarian, or bio-regional level. Revisiting eco-literature can aid our exploration of numerous global issues and challenges through a literary rendition of the natural world in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Reflecting on different works will prompt the readers to intensify their search for viable and effective choices and healthy alternatives in a confusing world.

Media, Markets, and Morals provides an original ethical framework designed specifically for evaluating ethical issues in the media, including new media. The authors apply their account of the moral role of the media, in their dual capacity as information providers for the public good and as businesses run for profit, to specific morally problematic practices and question how ethical behavior can be promoted within the industry. * Brings together experts in the fields of media studies and media ethics, information ethics, and professional ethics * Offers an original ethical framework designed specifically for evaluating ethical issues in the media, including new media * Builds upon and further develops an innovative theoretical model for examining and evaluating media corruption and methods of media anti-corruption previously developed by authors Spence and Quinn * Discloses and clarifies the inherent ethical nature of information and its communication to which the media as providers of information are necessarily committed

This open access book about the Zadeh Project demonstrates and explores a core question in clinical ethics: how can ethics consultants be accountable in the face of a robust plurality of ethical standpoints, especially those that underwrite practices and methods for doing ethics consultation as well as those viewpoints and values encountered in daily clinical ethics practice? Underscoring this question is the recognition that the field of clinical ethics consultation has arrived at a crucial point in its maturation. Many efforts are underway to more formally "professionalize" the field, with most aimed toward stabilizing a specific set of institutional considerations. Stretched between these institutional and practical initiatives resides a crucial set of of ethical considerations, chief among them the meaning and scope of responsibility for clinical ethics consultants. Developed around a long-form case scenario, the Zadeh Project provides a multi-layered series of "peer-reviews": critique of the actions of the case scenario's ethics consultant; reflection on clinical ethics method; examination of the many ways that commitments to method and practice can, and do, intersect, overlap, and alter one another. The design and format of this book thus models a key element for clinical ethics practice: the need and ability to provide careful and thoughtful explanation of core moral considerations that emerge among diverse standpoints. Specifically designed for those studying to become and those who are ethics consultants, this book, with its innovative and multi-layered approach, allows readers to share a peer-review-like experience that shows accountability to be what it is, an ethical, not merely procedural or administrative, undertaking.

Moral philosophy is no longer being pursued from arm-chairs. Instead, ethical questions are dissected in the experimental lab. This volume enables its readers to immerse themselves into Experimental Ethics' history, its current topics and future perspectives, its methodology, and the criticism it is subject to.

"Intelligently addresses several of the most important unresolved issues and controversies about altruism."
--"The Journal of Politics"

All but buried for most of the twentieth century, the concept of altruism has re-emerged in this last quarter as a focus of intense scholarly inquiry and general public interest. In the wake of increased consciousness of the human potential for destructiveness, both scholars and the general public are seeking interventions which will not only inhibit the process, but may in fact chart a new creative path toward a global community. Largely initiated by a group of pioneering social psychologists, early questions on altruism centered on its motivation and development primarily in the context of contrived laboratory experiments. Although publications on the topic have been considerable over the last several years, and now represent the work of representatives from many disciplines of inquiry, this volume is distinguished from others in several ways.

"Embracing the Other" emerged primarily as a response to recent research on an extraordinary manifestation of real-life altruism, namely to recent studies of non-Jewish rescuers of Jews during World War II. It is the work of a multi-disciplinary and international group of scholars, including philosophers, social psychologists, historians, sociologists, and educators, challenging several prevailing conceptual definitions and motivational sources of altruism. The book combines both new empirical and historical research as well as theoretical and philosophical approaches and includes a lengthy section addressing the practical implications of current thinking on altruism for society at large. The resultis a multi-textured work, addressing critical issues in varied disciplines, while centered on shared themes.

This book explores the overlooked but vital theoretical relationships between R. M. Hare, Alan Gewirth, and Jurgen Habermas. The author claims their accounts of value, while failing to address classic virtue-theoretical critiques, bear the seeds of a resolution to the ultimate question "What is most valuable?" These dialectical approaches, as claimed, justify a reinterpretation of value and value judgment according to the Carnapian conception of an empirical-linguistic framework or grammar. Through a further synthesis with the work of Philippa Foot and Thomas Magnell, the author shows that "value" would be literally meaningless without four fundamental phenomena which constitute such a framework: Logical Judgment, Conceptual Synthesis, Conceptual Abstraction, and Freedom. As part of the 'grammar of goodness,' the excellence of these phenomena, in a highly concrete way, constitute the essence of the greatest good, as this book explains.

The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then to utter. Every one who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the best of teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences, is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; it is for the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech, written or spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and prepared hearer. Such, moreover, is the complexity of life, that when we condescend upon details in our advice, we may be sure we condescend on error; and the best of education is to throw out some magnanimous hints. No man was ever so poor that he could express all he has in him by words, looks, or actions; his true knowledge is eternally incommu-nicable, for it is a knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom comes to him by no process of the mind, but in a supreme self-dictation, which keeps varying from hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of events and circumstances.

This is an innovative contribution to the philosophy of human rights. Considering both legal and philosophical scholarship, the views here bear an importance on the legitimacy of international politics and international law. As a result of more than 10 years of research, this revised edition engages with current debates through the help of new sections. Pluralistic universalism considers that, while formal filtering criteria constitute unavoidable requirements for the production of potentially valid arguments, the exemplarity of judgmental activity, in its turn, provides a pluralistic and retrospective reinterpretation for the fixity of such criteria. While speech formal standards grounds the thinnest possible presuppositions we can make as humans, the discursive exemplarity of judgments defends a notion of validity which is both contextually dependent and "subjectively universal". According to this approach, human rights principles are embedded within our linguistic argumentative practice. It is precisely from the intersubjective and dialogical relation among speakers that we come to reflect upon those same conditions of validity of our arguments. Once translated into national and regional constitutional norms, the discursive validity of exemplar judgments postulates the philosophical necessity for an ideal of legal-constitutional pluralism, challenging all those attempts trying to frustrate both horizontal (state to state) and vertical (supra-national-state-social) on-going debates on human rights. On the first edition of this book: "Claudio Corradetti's book is a thoughtful attempt to find an adequate theoretical foundation for human rights. Its approach is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on issues in analytical philosophy as well as contemporary political theorists, and the result is a densely argued text aimed at scholars ... ." (Andrew Lambert, Metapsychology Online Reviews, Vol. 14 (3), January, 2010)

This book is devoted to the welfare of invertebrates, which make up 99% of animal species on earth. Addressing animal welfare, we do not often think of invertebrates; in fact we seldom consider them to be deserving of welfare evaluation. And yet we should. Welfare is a broad concern for any animal that we house, control or utilize - and we utilize invertebrates a lot. The Authors start with an emphasis on the values of non-vertebrate animals and discuss the need for a book on the present topic. The following chapters focus on specific taxa, tackling questions that are most appropriate to each one. What is pain in crustaceans, and how might we prevent it? How do we ensure that octopuses are not bored? What do bees need to thrive, pollinate our plants and give us honey? Since invertebrates have distinct personalities and some social animals have group personalities, how do we consider this? And, as in the European Union's application of welfare consideration to cephalopods, how do the practical regulatory issues play out? We have previously relegated invertebrates to the category 'things' and did not worry about their treatment. New research suggest that some invertebrates such as cephalopods and crustaceans can have pain and suffering, might also have consciousness and awareness. Also, good welfare is going to mean different things to spiders, bees, corals, etc. This book is taking animal welfare in a very different direction. Academics and students of animal welfare science, those who keep invertebrates for scientific research or in service to the goals of humans, as well as philosophers will find this work thought-provoking, instructive and informative.

This text offers a review of historical traditions of international ethical and political theory in the light of modern developments in political philosophy. McCarthy provides a defence of natural law tradition, and in response to the criticism of natural law that, along with Kantianism, it is too abstract to produce a substantive account of justice and rights, constructs an argument for basic, agency-grounded rights. Through his study, the author attacks "realism" and the modern "cosmopolitan" theories that have been too little debated.

Current research on social capital tends to focus on an economic reading of social relations. Whereas economists pride themselves on reaching out to social theory at-large, sociologists criticize the economization of the social fabric. The concept of social capital serves as a touchstone for the study of the role of the economy in modern societies. It serves as a breach for expanding the reach of economic categories, yet it also yields the opportunity for questioning and transforming economic premises in the light of social theory and philosophy. Exploring the concept of social capital in the context of related terms like embeddedness, trust, sociability, and cooperation is particularly instructive. This collection of papers from various disciplines (philosophy, sociology, economics, religious studies) combines conceptual studies and empirical findings. It is a plea for re-embedding economic thought in a broader theoretical framework. By exploring the varieties of social identities implied in the theories of social capital, the authors argue for a social (or more sociable) conception of man.

The Roman Catholic Bishops of the Caribbean, the Antilles Episcopal Conference (AEC), have over the past forty years written statements addressed to their faithful and people in the wider Caribbean. The statements covered a wide range of issues impinging on the life and faith of Caribbean people, including political engagement, crime and violence, homosexuality, HIV-AIDS, sexuality, the environment. A key theme running through the statements is the concern with justice. This collection of critical essays and personal reflections explores the insights provided by these statements. In so doing, it presents a critical reading of the corpus with a view to presenting its relevance to the regional and global conversation on matters of human flourishing. The authors of the volume represent the diverse voices from within the Catholic Caribbean, particularly some fresh new voices. This collection brings together the voices of men and women--pastors, laity, theologians, political leaders, educators; each essayist considers a specific statement and provides a commentary and interpretation of its contents as well as a considered assessment of its impact on the life of the faithful. Academics, lay persons, pastors, policy makers and politicians will find this a useful collection.

This book covers a varied spectrum of ethical topics, ranging from the fundamental considerations regarding ethical values, to the rationale of obligation, and the ethical management of societal and personal affairs. Nicholas Rescher shows how fundamental general principles underpin the pragmatic stance we can appropriately take on questions of specific ethical detail. His work on these issues is pervaded by a certain pragmatic point of view. As the popular dictum has it, we humans come this way but once, with just a single lifetime available, to each one of us. Rescher argues that it is a matter of rational self-interest and ethical obligation to use this opportunity for doing something towards making the world a better home for ourselves and our posterity.

This new English translation of Solov'ev's principal ethical treatise, written in his later years, presents Solov'ev's mature views on a host of topics ranging from a critique of individualistic ethical systems to the death penalty, the meaning of war, animal rights, and environmentalism. Written for the educated public rather than for a narrow circle of specialists, Solov'ev's work largely avoids technical vocabulary while illustrating his points with references to classical literature from the ancient Greeks to Goethe. Although written from a deeply held Christian viewpoint, Solov'ev emphasizes the turn from his earlier position, now allegedly developing the independence of moral philosophy from metaphysics and revealed religion. Solov'ev sees the formal universality of the idea of the moral good in all human beings, albeit that this idea is bereft of material content. This first new English-language translation in a century makes a unique contribution to the study of Solov'ev's thought. It uses the text of the second edition published in 1899 as its main text, but provides the variations and additions from the earlier versions of each chapter in running notes. Other unique features of this translation are that the pagination of the widely available 1914 edition is provided in the text, and the sources of Solov'ev's numerous Biblical quotations and references as well as literary and historical allusions.

Beginning with the thesis that Humanism has its roots both in the Enlightenment and in Transcendentalism, this book explores the consequences of taking such a point of view. Radest criticizes the desertion of Enlightenment values such as freedom, human solidarity, and rationality, as well as the failure of Humanists to understand the subjective and emotional features of their history. Out of this exploration, which is a consequence of both personal experience and philosophic analysis, Radest concludes that Humanism, and by implication, modernism are still dynamic and relevant modes of response to the problems of human beings.

How are emotions related to values? This book argues against a perceptual theory of emotions, which sees emotions as perception-like states that help us gain evaluative knowledge, and argues for a caring-based theory of emotions, which sees emotions as felt desires or desire satisfactions, both of which arise out of caring about something.

This volume brings together a range of interdisciplinary perspectives on a topic of central importance, but which has otherwise tended to be approached from within just one or another disciplinary framework. Most of the essays contained here incorporate some degree of interdisciplinarity in their own approach, but the volume nevertheless divides into three main sections: Philosophical considerations; Humanities approaches; Legal, medical, and therapeutic contexts. The volume includes essays by philosophers, medical practitioners and researchers, historians, lawyers, literary, Classical, and Judaic scholars. The essays are united by a common concern with the question of the human character of suffering, and the demands that suffering, and the recognition of suffering, make upon us.