Incentives can be found everywhere--in schools, businesses, factories, and government--influencing people's choices about almost everything, from financial decisions and tobacco use to exercise and child rearing. So long as people have a choice, incentives seem innocuous. But "Strings Attached" demonstrates that when incentives are viewed as a kind of power rather than as a form of exchange, many ethical questions arise: How do incentives affect character and institutional culture? Can incentives be manipulative or exploitative, even if people are free to refuse them? What are the responsibilities of the powerful in using incentives? Ruth Grant shows that, like all other forms of power, incentives can be subject to abuse, and she identifies their legitimate and illegitimate uses.

Grant offers a history of the growth of incentives in early twentieth-century America, identifies standards for judging incentives, and examines incentives in four areas--plea bargaining, recruiting medical research subjects, International Monetary Fund loan conditions, and motivating students. In every case, the analysis of incentives in terms of power yields strikingly different and more complex judgments than an analysis that views incentives as trades, in which the desired behavior is freely exchanged for the incentives offered.

Challenging the role and function of incentives in a democracy, "Strings Attached" questions whether the penchant for constant incentivizing undermines active, autonomous citizenship. Readers of this book are sure to view the ethics of incentives in a new light.

This book, one of John Locke's (1632-1704) major works, is primarily about moral education--its role in creating a responsible adult and the importance of virtue as a transmitter of culture. However, Locke's most detailed and comprehensive guide also ranges over such practical topics as the
effectiveness of physical punishment, how best to teach foreign languages, table manners, and varieties of crying. This critical edition is based on the third edition (1695), with variants from the first five editions, from the Harvard University Library and the British Library drafts, and from
Locke's correspondence to Edward Clarke and his wife.

Arguing that hypocrisy can be constructive and that strictly principled behaviour can be destructive, this book explores the full range of ethical alternatives, distinguishing the various types of hypocrisy and integrity. Drawing on the work of Machiavelli and Rousseau, who both recognized that the irrationalities of human behaviour made totally honest and rational politics impossible, the book examines the ethical dilemmas experienced by politicians. It shows that the tasks of the politician - building coalitions among conflicting interests, uniting groups with a basic mistrust of one another - cannot be accomplished while remaining inflexibly attached to principle. Clarifying the differences between idealism and fanaticism, moderation and rationalization, this study seeks to uncover the moral limits of compromise and reveal new standards of ethical judgement.

This volume offers two complementary works, unabridged, in modernized, annotated texts--the only available edition priced for classroom use. Grant and Tarcov provide a concise introduction, a note on the texts, and a select bibliography.

In this work, Ruth W. Grant presents a new approach to John Locke's familiar works. Taking the unusual step of relating Locke's Two Treatises to his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Grant establishes the unity and coherence of Locke's political arguments. She analyzes the Two Treatises as a systematic demonstration of liberal principles of right and power and grounds it in the epistemology set forth in the Essay.

In this work, Ruth W. Grant presents a new approach to John Locke's familiar works. Taking the unusual step of relating Locke's "Two Treatises" to his "Essay Concerning Human Understanding," Grant establishes the unity and coherence of Locke's political arguments. She analyzes the "Two Treatises" as a systematic demonstration of liberal principles of right and power and grounds it in the epistemology set forth in the "Essay."