what makes a property intrinsic? What exactly does the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction rest upon, and how can we reasonably justify this distinction? These questions bear great importance on central debates in such diverse philosophical fields as ethics (What is the nature of intrinsic value?), philosophy of mind (Does mental content supervene on internal bodily features?), epistemology (Can intrinsic duplicates differ in the justification of their beliefs?) and philosophy of science (Do the causal powers of an object depend on its extrinsic features?) - to only name a few. Given the central relevance of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction to philosophical research, a collection of pertinent essays on the topic is an essential addition to the literature. It helps to identify more clearly the problems and arguments that are at stake. The anthology provides a comprehensive overview of central facets of the debates, including both crucial earlier and important new contributions by leading philosophers. As such it constitutes an indispensable component of any serious study of the topic.

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.

The nine original essays collected in this volume explore the themes of philosophical progress, ultimate explanation, the metaphysics of free will, and the relation of sciences and religion. These essays exemplify Nicholas Rescher's characteristic mode of combining historical perspectives with analytical elucidation on philosophically contested issues and utilize this methodology to address some of the salient problems of the field.

The study of altruism, morality, and social solidarity is an emerging field of scholarship and research in sociology. This handbook will function as a foundational source for this subject matter and field, and as an impetus to its further development.

Pragmatist philosopher William James has long been deemed a dubious guide to ethical reasoning. This book overturns such thinking, demonstrating the coherence of James's efforts to develop a flexible but rigorous framework for individuals and societies seeking freedom, meaning, and justice in a world of interdependence, uncertainty, and change.

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.

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.

Posthuman Personhood takes up the ethical challenge posed by Francis Fukuyama's work, Our Posthuman Future. Daryl J. Wennemann argues that the traditional concept of personhood may be fruitfully applied to the ethical challenge we face in a posthuman age. He draws upon Wilfrid Sellars' treatment of the concept of a person within "the manifest image of man in the world." Sellars proposed that we develop a stereoscopic view of reality that includes both a scientific understanding of the world and a meaningful place for persons living and acting in the world. Following Mary Anne Warren, Wennemann develops a distinction between two meanings of the term "human," a biological meaning and a moral meaning, and maintains that all (biologically) human beings are persons. But, it is not necessarily the case that all persons must be (biologically) human. After drawing on a contemporary version of Kant's distinction between a theoretical possibility and a real possibility, the book posits that biologically non-human persons like robots, computers, or aliens are a theoretical possibility but that we do not know if they are a real possibility. Finally, Wennemann describes an ethic of self-limitation for the posthuman age.

This work defends two main theses. First, modern Western pornographic fiction functions as a self-deceptive vehicle for sexual or blood-lustful arousal; and second, that its emergence owes as much to Puritan Protestantism and its inner- or this-worldly asceticism as does the emergence of modern rationalized capitalism.

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.

Americans deserve honest government. This text addresses the need for a comprehensive statement of ethical behavior for public officials and employees at every level of government. Recognizing the need for legal reforms that focus mainly on campaign contributions, the authors examine the broader question of how we should measure the routine, day-to-day ethics of men and women in public service. By focussing more on attitudes and practices, the authors suggest that the highest standard of both ethics and competence should be demanded of all our public servants. The book identifies situations in which officials ought to act cautiously and presents the ethical rules that should be applied to each situation.

The text presents a philosophy of public service and then moves to particular situations to which this philosophy must be applied: campaign finance; the campaign itself; behavior of elected officials, appointed officials, and public employees; the role of lobbyists; compensation for public servants; moving to and from the public and private sectors; ethical guidelines for lawyers and judges; the private lives of public servants; and enforcement of ethics. The final chapter discusses the sometimes competing forces of ethics and competency. Ethical guidelines are gathered in the appendix and serve as a useful starting point for ethics in any public service setting. The combination of persuasive and thought-provoking proposals for governmental ethics reform along with practical guidelines on how to maintain the highest possible standards of ethical conduct makes this an important text for students in ethics and government courses, as well as an imperative reading for public officials, whether elected, appointed, or career.

This book tackles the difficult task of defending relativism in the age of science. It succeeds where others have failed by combining the rigor of analytic philosophy with the first-hand insights of anthropological experience. Typically, an anthropologist's work on relativism offers rich examples of cultural diversity, but lacks philosophical rigor, while a philosopher's work on relativism offers rigorous argumentation, but lacks rich anthropological examples. Facing Relativism, written by a North American philosopher who lived in the Ecuadorian rainforest, does both. Relativism at a global scale is a view that our claims about the world, both theoretical and practical, are evaluable only relative to a context shaped by factors such as culture, history, language, and environment - or, "a way of life." It can be at once intuitive and disturbing. While we might expect a way of life to exert some influence on our claims, relativism seems to move to the overly strong conclusion that all of our claims about what is true or good must merely be expressions of cultural bias. It easily opens itself to a host of charges, including paradox and self-contradiction. Facing Relativism argues that such problems arise largely from a failure to situate the view within the context that has, throughout its long history, been its inspiration: the experience - whether through literature, the imagination, or direct anthropological contact - of deeply engaging with a very different way of life. By starting with a careful analysis of the experience of deep engagement, this book shows that relativism is neither as incoherent nor as alarming as we tend to think. In fact, it might just offer the tools we need to face these times of global crisis and change. Alyssa Luboff has produced an exceptional defense of a cultural relativism that recognizes how the epistemic and the ethical intertwine in a way of life. Drawing from her deep engagement over many years with the Chachi and traditional Afro-Ecuadorian people, she provides vivid and compelling examples of how one can come to understand another way of life as well-reasoned, coherent, and integrated, as challenging to one's own commitments at the same time that one challenges it. Luboff combines her deep engagement with command of the relevant philosophical and anthropological literature. She presents the major arguments against relativism in a sympathetic and generous way, and carefully responds with a sophisticated relativism that acknowledges how the world resists and responds to different conceptual shapings of it. This book is beautifully written and will engage both the academic specialist and the intelligent general reader. - David Wong, Duke University By the time her brilliant faceoff is over, philosophical relativism will never again be seen as a straw man. - Richard A. Shweder, University of Chicago This book will interest readers who seek an astute account of how the pursuit of "truth" - whether relative or absolute - enters into practices of power. Luboff 's treatment is impressive. - Michael Krausz, Bryn Mawr College and Linacre College, Oxford University

Marxism and Ethics is a comprehensive and highly readable introduction to the rich and complex history of Marxist ethical theory as it has evolved over the last century and a half. Paul Blackledge argues that Marx s ethics of freedom underpin his revolutionary critique of capitalism. Marx s conception of agency, he argues, is best understood through the lens of Hegel s synthesis of Kantian and Aristotelian ethical concepts. Marx s rejection of moralism is not, as suggested in crude materialist readings of his work, a dismissal of the free, purposive, subjective dimension of action. Freedom, for Marx, is both the essence and the goal of the socialist movement against alienation, and freedom s concrete modern form is the movement for real democracy against the capitalist separation of economics and politics. At the same time, Marxism and Ethics is also a distinctive contribution to, and critique of, contemporary political philosophy, one that fashions a powerful synthesis of the strongest elements of the Marxist tradition. Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre s early contributions to British New Left debates on socialist humanism, Blackledge develops an alternative ethical theory for the Marxist tradition, one that avoids the inadequacies of approaches framed by Kant on the one hand and utilitarianism on the other."

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 is the first collection of essays in which European and American philosophers explicitly think out their respective contributions and identities as environmental thinkers in the analytic and continental traditions. The American/European, as well as Analytic/Continental collaboration here bears fruit helpful for further theorizing and research. The essays group around three well-defined areas of questioning all focusing on the amelioration/management of environmentally, historically and traditionally diminished landscapes. The first part deals with differences between New World and the Old World perspectives on nature and landscape restoration in general, the second focuses on the meaning of ecological restoration of cultural landscapes, and the third on the meaning of the wolf and of wildness. It does so in a way that the strengths of each philosophical school-continental and analytic-comes to the fore in order to supplement the other's approach. This text is open to educated readers across all disciplines, particularly those interested in restoration/adaptation ecology, the cultural construction of place and landscape, the ongoing conversation about wilderness, the challenges posed to global environmental change. The text may also be a gold mine for doctoral students looking for dissertation projects in environmental philosophy that are inclusive of continental and analytic traditions. This text is rich in innovative approaches to the questions they raise that are reasonably well thought out. The fact that the essays in each section really do resonate with one another directly is also intellectually exciting and very helpful in working out the full dimensions of each question raised in the volume.

New developments in science and technology have resulted in shifting ethical challenges in many areas including in genomics research. This book enables those who are involved in genomics research, whether as researcher, participant or policy maker, to understand the ethical issues currently developing in this field and to participate actively in these important debates. A clear account is given of how science and technology are outstripping the capacity of previous ethical regulations to cope with current issues, together with practical illustrations of possible ways forward. Key ethical ideas are presented, drawing on the history of research regulation and on an account of the particular challenges arising in the field of genomics. The book uses a grounded, practical approach to explaining ethical concepts and issues which is geared to enhancing interdisciplinary dialogue. Its broad approach to ethical issues includes relevant considerations from social psychology and there is a particular emphasis on understanding the problems of ethical regulations and practice in the institutional and social context of research. A glossary and numerous text boxes explaining relevant terms and key ideas help to make the work an invaluable resource for both beginners and experts in the field.

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."

John Stuart Mill was one of the most important figures in political philosophy but little has been published on his ideas on justice. This impressive collection by renowned Mill scholars addresses this gap in Mill studies and theories of justice.

Reflections on the Religious, the Ethical, and the Political presents fourteen essays devoted to the interconnected topics of religion, ethics, and politics, along with an introductory interview with the author regarding his philosophical development over the years. This volume serves two interconnected purposes: as an introduction or reintroduction to Calvin O.Schrag s intellectual contributions to a critical consideration of these three topics, and as a critical companion and supplement to Schrag s published work on these topics. The topics of religion, ethics, and politics have served as pivot points throughout Schrag s career in the academy, which spans half a century."

Science is the most reliable means available for understanding the world around us and our place in it. But, since science draws conclusions based on limited empirical evidence, there is always a chance that a scientific inference will be incorrect. That chance, known as inductive risk, is endemic to science. Though inductive risk has always been present in scientific practice, the role of values in responding to it has only recently gained extensive attention from philosophers, scientists, and policy-makers. Exploring Inductive Risk brings together a set of eleven concrete case studies with the goals of illustrating the pervasiveness of inductive risk, assisting scientists and policymakers in responding to it, and moving theoretical discussions of this phenomenon forward. The case studies range over a wide variety of scientific contexts, including the drug approval process, high energy particle physics, dual-use research, climate science, research on gender disparities in employment, clinical trials, and toxicology. The book includes an introductory chapter that provides a conceptual introduction to the topic and a historical overview of the argument that values have an important role to play in responding to inductive risk, as well as a concluding chapter that synthesizes important themes from the book and maps out issues in need of further consideration.

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.

The first comprehensive and critical overview of Christian perspectives on the relationship between social justice and ecological integrity, this annotated bibliography focuses on works that include ecological issues, social-ethical values and problems, and explicitly theological or religious reflection on ecological and social ethics and their interrelations. This body of moral reflection on the relationship between ecological ethics and social and economic justice (sometimes called eco-justice) will be of interest to those involved in religious education, research, liturgical renewal, public policy recommendations, community action, lay witness, and personal life-style transformation. The work is comprised of an introductory review essay followed by over 500 complete annotations. As a contemporary subject, much has been written in the past 30 years about the Christian approaches to the relationship between ecological integrity and social justice. The literature comes from a variety of disciplines and perspectives: from biblical studies to philosophical theology and cultural criticism; and from evangelical theory to process, feminist, and creation-centered theologies. Although there have been significant movements and developments in this literature, much writing seems unaware of other or earlier discussions of the interrelationships. This volume brings all the works together.