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There is a pressing need for an investigation into how time and ethics impact on each other. This book leads the way in addressing that need. The essays in this collection raise and investigate some of the key issues that arise at the intersection between these two areas of philosophy. It is for undergraduates, postgraduates and professional philosophers.
In this book, Toby Svoboda develops and defends a Kantian environmental virtue ethic, challenging the widely-held view that Kant's moral philosophy has little to offer environmental ethics. On the contrary, Svoboda contends that on Kantian grounds, there is good moral reason to care about non-human organisms in their own right and to value their flourishing independently of human interests, since doing so is constitutive of certain (environmental) virtues. Svoboda argues that Kant’s account of indirect duties regarding nature can ground a compelling environmental ethic: the Kantian duty to develop morally virtuous dispositions strictly proscribes unnecessarily harming organisms, and it also gives us moral reason to act in ways that benefit such organisms. Svoboda’s account engages the recent literature on environmental virtue (including Rosalind Hursthouse, Philip Cafaro, Ronald Sandler, Thomas Hill, and Louke van Wensveen) and provides an original argument for an environmental ethic firmly rooted in Kant’s moral philosophy.
Human Dignity in Contemporary Ethics develops a holistic and relevant understanding of human dignity for ethics today. Whilst critics of the concept of human dignity call for its dismissal, and many of its defenders rehearse the same old arguments, this book offers an alternative set of methodological assumptions on which to base a revitalized and practical understanding of human dignity, which at the same time overcomes the challenges that the concept currently faces. The Component Dimensions of Human Dignity model enables human dignity to serve both as a descriptive category that explains moral choices, and as a normative criterion that helps to evaluate moral behaviour. A consideration of two cases--violent crime and physician-assisted suicide--demonstrates how the model offers a way to avoid the pitfalls of both moralism and moral relativism, while still leaving space for relativity in ethics. By using an approach that should be acceptable to both religious and secular perspectives alike, this book offers a unique way out of the 'dignity talk' that currently plagues ethics.
Certain things, like justice, have impersonal value; other things, like your parents, carry personal value: their value is related to you, and they are, in a sense, good or bad for you. Rønnow-Rasmussen examines the notion of 'good-for', and provides a new analysis of personal value that justifies its inclusion within our classical value taxonomy.
Kant and Applied Ethics makes an important contribution to Kant scholarship, illuminating the vital moral parameters of key ethical debates. Offers a critical analysis of Kant’s ethics, interrogating the theoretical bases of his theory and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses Examines the controversies surrounding the most important ethical discussions taking place today, including abortion, the death penalty, and same-sex marriage Joins innovative thinkers in contemporary Kantian scholarship, including Christine Korsgaard, Allen Wood, and Barbara Herman, in taking Kant’s philosophy in new and interesting directions Clarifies Kant's legacy for applied ethics, helping us to understand how these debates have been structured historically and providing us with the philosophical tools to address them
Is it important to our quality of life that the preferences we satisfy are rational and well-informed? Standard preferentialist theories allege that a person's preferences and their satisfaction are the correct measure of well-being. In preference-sensitive theories, preferences are important but do not count for everything. This raises the question of whether we ought to make demands on these preferences. In this book Egonsson presents a critical analysis of the 'Full Information Account of the Good', which claims that only the satisfaction of rational and fully informed preferences has value for a person. The problems he deals with include: how is an information requirement to be formulated and shaped? Is it possible to design a requirement that is both neutral to the agent's epistemic situation and reasonable? Is the requirement reasonable? Does it make sense to claim that some are better off if we satisfy the preferences they would have had in some merely hypothetical circumstances? This is an important new book on preference rationality which will be of great interest to academics and students of ethics, quality of life, and rationality.
A persistent theme of the 20th century has been a critique of metaphysics. But the limitations of this critique are manifesting themselves more and more clearly. Among them is the fact that both inner and outer nature have form and structure. This volume provides a comprehensive elucidation of the theoretical and practical problems of metaphysics.
A Swedish journal of philosophy.