Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects

Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description

Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects

Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description


Public Philosophy

Public Philosophy PDF Author: Michael J. Sandel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674019287
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
In this book, Michael Sandel takes up some of the hotly contested moral and political issues of our time, including affirmative action, assisted suicide, abortion, gay rights, stem cell research, the meaning of toleration and civility, the gap between rich and poor, the role of markets, and the place of religion in public life. He argues that the most prominent ideals in our political life--individual rights and freedom of choice--do not by themselves provide an adequate ethic for a democratic society. Sandel calls for a politics that gives greater emphasis to citizenship, community, and civic virtue, and that grapples more directly with questions of the good life. Liberals often worry that inviting moral and religious argument into the public sphere runs the risk of intolerance and coercion. These essays respond to that concern by showing that substantive moral discourse is not at odds with progressive public purposes, and that a pluralist society need not shrink from engaging the moral and religious convictions that its citizens bring to public life.

Equality and Tradition

Equality and Tradition PDF Author: Samuel Scheffler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199899576
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
This collection of essays by noted philosopher Samuel Scheffler combines discussion of abstract questions in moral and political theory with attention to the normative dimension of current social and political controversies. In addition to chapters on more abstract issues such as the nature of human valuing, the role of partiality in ethics, and the significance of the distinction between doing and allowing, the volume also includes essays on immigration, terrorism, toleration, political equality, and the normative significance of tradition. Uniting the essays is a shared preoccupation with questions about human value and values. The volume opens with an essay that considers the general question of what it is to value something - as opposed, say, to wanting it, wanting to want it, or thinking that it is valuable. Other essays explore particular values, such as equality, whose meaning and content are contested. Still others consider the tensions that arise, both within and among individuals, in consequence of the diversity of human values. One of the overarching aims of the book is to illuminate the different ways in which liberal political theory attempts to resolve conflicts of both of these kinds.

Moral Aspects of Economic Growth, and Other Essays

Moral Aspects of Economic Growth, and Other Essays PDF Author: Barrington Moore, Jr.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501726439
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Barrington Moore, Jr., one of the most distinguished thinkers in critical theory and historical sociology, was long concerned with the prospects for freedom and decency in industrial society. The product of decades of reflection on issues of authority, inequality, and injustice, this volume analyzes fluctuating moral beliefs and behavior in political and economic affairs at different points in history, from the early Middle Ages in England to the prospects for liberalism under twentieth-century Soviet socialism. The social sources of antisocial behavior; principles of social inequality; and the origins, enemies, and possibilities of rational discussion in public affairs—these are among the topics Moore considers as he seeks to uncover the historical causes of some accepted forms of morality and to assess their social consequences. The keynote essay examines how moral codes grew out of commercial practices in England from medieval times through the industrial revolution. Moore pays special attention to conceptions of honesty and the temptation to evade that inform the volume as a whole. In the other essays, he considers particular political issues, viewing "political" in its broadest sense as an unequal distribution of power and authority that carries a strong moral charge. Free of preaching and advocacy, his work offers a rare reasonable assessment of the morality of major social institutions over time.

Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding

Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Knowledge, Theory of
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description


Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy

Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy PDF Author: Jonathan Wolff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691149003
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Previously unpublished writings from one of the most important political philosophers of recent times G. A. Cohen was one of the leading political philosophers of recent times. He first came to wide attention in 1978 with the prize-winning book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence. In subsequent decades his published writings largely turned away from the history of philosophy, focusing instead on equality, freedom, and justice. However, throughout his career he regularly lectured on a wide range of moral and political philosophers of the past. This volume collects these previously unpublished lectures. Starting with a chapter centered on Plato, but also discussing the pre-Socratics as well as Aristotle, the book moves to social contract theory as discussed by Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, and then continues with chapters on Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The book also contains some previously published but uncollected papers on Marx, Hobbes, and Kant, among other figures. The collection concludes with a memoir of Cohen written by the volume editor, Jonathan Wolff, who was a student of Cohen's. A hallmark of the lectures is Cohen's engagement with the thinkers he discusses. Rather than simply trying to render their thought accessible to the modern reader, he tests whether their arguments and positions are clear, sound, and free from contradiction. Throughout, he homes in on central issues and provides fresh approaches to the philosophers he examines. Ultimately, these lectures teach us not only about some of the great thinkers in the history of moral and political philosophy, but also about one of the great thinkers of our time: Cohen himself.

Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice

Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice PDF Author: Jan Narveson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1461643058
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice is a collection of essays of the moral and political philosophy of Jan Narveson. The essays in this collection share a consistent theme running through much of Narveson's moral and political philosophy, namely that politics and morals stem from the interests of individual people, and have no antecedent authority over us. Rather, the source of such authority lies in the way people are related to one another, and most especially, in the exigencies of cooperation. Humans have plenty of problems, Narveson argues, but we are perhaps unique among animals in that our worst enemies, often enough, are other humans. The rules of morals and the devices of politics, in the view Narveson holds, deal with these problems by identifying the potential for gain from cooperation, and loss from the reverse. The essays express a collective antipathy for the ways in which modern political and moral philosophy has ridden roughshod over sane and efficient social restrictions, leaving us with a social scene devoted mainly to satisfying the cravings for power of the politically ambitious. Politics, Narveson argues with distress, has subverted morals. The essays in this collection, in various ways and as applied to various aspects of the scene, detail these charges, arguing that the ultimate and true point of politics and morals is to enable us to make our lives better, according to our varied senses of what that might mean.

Moral and Political Philosophy

Moral and Political Philosophy PDF Author: David Hume
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439119937
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 635

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Book Description
A Collection of essays from famous Scottish philosopher David Hume, one of the most prominent figures of the Scottish Enlightenment and a close friend of Adam Smith. Hume's contributions to economics are found mostly in his Political Discourses (1752), which were later incorporated into his Essays (1758).

The Moral and Political Status of Children

The Moral and Political Status of Children PDF Author: David Archard
Publisher: Oxford : Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199242682
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The book contains original essays by distinguished moral and political philosophers on the topic of the moral and political status of children. It covers the themes of children's rights, parental rights and duties, the family and justice, and civic education.

Moral Boundaries

Moral Boundaries PDF Author: Joan Tronto
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000159086
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
In Moral Boundaries Joan C. Tronto provides one of the most original responses to the controversial questions surrounding women and caring. Tronto demonstrates that feminist thinkers have failed to realise the political context which has shaped their debates about care. It is her belief that care cannot be a useful moral and political concept until its traditional and ideological associations as a "women's morality" are challenged. Moral Boundaries contests the association of care with women as empirically and historically inaccurate, as well as politically unwise. In our society, members of unprivileged groups such as the working classes and people of color also do disproportionate amounts of caring. Tronto presents care as one of the central activites of human life and illustrates the ways in which society degrades the importance of caring in order to maintain the power of those who are privileged.