Cultivating Conscience

Cultivating Conscience PDF Author: Lynn Stout
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140083600X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
How the science of unselfish behavior can promote law, order, and prosperity Contemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly—few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop them. In this pathbreaking book, acclaimed law and economics scholar Lynn Stout argues that this focus neglects the crucial role our better impulses could play in society. Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, Stout contends that we should rely on the force of conscience. Stout makes the compelling case that conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. Drawing from social psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, Stout demonstrates how social cues—instructions from authorities, ideas about others' selfishness and unselfishness, and beliefs about benefits to others—have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how our legal system can use these social cues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish, ethical behavior in many realms, including politics and business. Stout also shows how our current emphasis on self-interest and incentives may have contributed to the catastrophic political missteps and financial scandals of recent memory by encouraging corrupt and selfish actions, and undermining society's collective moral compass. This book proves that if we care about effective laws and civilized society, the powers of conscience are simply too important for us to ignore.

Cultivating Conscience

Cultivating Conscience PDF Author: Lynn Stout
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140083600X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 319

Get Book Here

Book Description
How the science of unselfish behavior can promote law, order, and prosperity Contemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly—few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop them. In this pathbreaking book, acclaimed law and economics scholar Lynn Stout argues that this focus neglects the crucial role our better impulses could play in society. Rather than lean on the power of greed to shape laws and human behavior, Stout contends that we should rely on the force of conscience. Stout makes the compelling case that conscience is neither a rare nor quirky phenomenon, but a vital force woven into our daily lives. Drawing from social psychology, behavioral economics, and evolutionary biology, Stout demonstrates how social cues—instructions from authorities, ideas about others' selfishness and unselfishness, and beliefs about benefits to others—have a powerful role in triggering unselfish behavior. Stout illustrates how our legal system can use these social cues to craft better laws that encourage more unselfish, ethical behavior in many realms, including politics and business. Stout also shows how our current emphasis on self-interest and incentives may have contributed to the catastrophic political missteps and financial scandals of recent memory by encouraging corrupt and selfish actions, and undermining society's collective moral compass. This book proves that if we care about effective laws and civilized society, the powers of conscience are simply too important for us to ignore.

A Scholar's Conscience

A Scholar's Conscience PDF Author: J. Saunders Redding
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813188660
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
J. Saunders Redding (19061988) was often and justifiably called "the dean of African American scholars." As professor and man of letters, he wrote about African American literature and culture in vivid and scholarly prose. And of all the writers of his generation, he best represented, and came closest to explaining, the hopes and conflicts of American democracy in a multiracial society. Yet his perceptions and writings were never limited to race, nationality, academia, or one literary genre. In this first published anthology drawn from Redding's books, essays, and speeches, Faith Berry has compiled representative selections from every period and genre in which Redding wrote: autobiography, fiction, biography, history, journalism, travelogue, and literary criticism. The collection offers a wide range of his thought and criticism from numerous publications, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of his works. Redding is essential reading for all those who argue for or against the intellectual credo he espoused: that African American writing and culture be studied in the context of American life and culture, not in insolation. This useful and balanced edition of Redding's writing should serve to introduce him to a new audience certain to find his texts worthy of attention and discussion. Readers concerned with literary and social history, higher education, race relations, American and ethnic studies, foreign affairs, cultural exchange—or indeed the humanities in general—will find this work an important resource. Contemporary African American scholars will value the book as a lasting reference. And anyone unfamiliar with Redding's work will discover and appreciate the breadth of his contributions to scholarship and literature.

Conscience

Conscience PDF Author: Andrew David Naselli
Publisher: Crossway
ISBN: 1433550776
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
There is an increasing number of divisive issues in our world today, all of which require great discernment. Thankfully, God has given each of us a conscience to align our wills with his and help us make wise decisions. Examining all thirty New Testament passages that touch on the conscience, Andrew Naselli and J. D. Crowley help readers get to know their consciences—a largely neglected topic—and engage with other Christians who hold different convictions. Offering guiding principles and answering critical questions about how the conscience works and how to care for it, this book shows how the conscience impacts our approach to church unity, ministry, and more.

In the Smaller Scope of Conscience

In the Smaller Scope of Conscience PDF Author: C. Timothy McKeown
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816526877
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
In the Smaller Scope of Conscience is a thoughtful and detailed study of the ins and outs of the four-year process behind the creation of NMAIA and NAGPRA . It is a singular contribution to the history of these issues, with the potential to help mediate the ongoing debate by encouraging all sides to retrace the steps of the legislators responsible for the acts.

Christianity and the Laws of Conscience

Christianity and the Laws of Conscience PDF Author: Jeffrey B. Hammond
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835384
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
This book explores the Christian theological, legal, constitutional, historical, and philosophical meanings of conscience for both scholarly and educated general audiences.

Acts of Conscience

Acts of Conscience PDF Author: Joseph Kip Kosek
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231144199
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
In response to the massive bloodshed that defined the twentieth century, American religious radicals developed a modern form of nonviolent protest, one that combined Christian principles with new uses of mass media. Greatly influenced by the ideas of Mohandas Gandhi, these "acts of conscience" included sit-ins, boycotts, labor strikes, and conscientious objection to war. Beginning with World War I and ending with the ascendance of Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph Kip Kosek traces the impact of A. J. Muste, Richard Gregg, and other radical Christian pacifists on American democratic theory and practice. These dissenters found little hope in the secular ideologies of Wilsonian Progressivism, revolutionary Marxism, and Cold War liberalism, all of which embraced organized killing at one time or another. The example of Jesus, they believed, demonstrated the immorality and futility of such violence under any circumstance and for any cause. Yet the theories of Christian nonviolence are anything but fixed. For decades, followers have actively reinterpreted the nonviolent tradition, keeping pace with developments in politics, technology, and culture. Tracing the rise of militant nonviolence across a century of industrial conflict, imperialism, racial terror, and international warfare, Kosek recovers radical Christians' remarkable stance against the use of deadly force, even during World War II and other seemingly just causes. His research sheds new light on an interracial and transnational movement that posed a fundamental, and still relevant, challenge to the American political and religious mainstream.

Conscience

Conscience PDF Author: Patricia Churchland
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1324000899
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
How do we determine right from wrong? Conscience illuminates the answer through science and philosophy. In her brilliant work Touching a Nerve, Patricia S. Churchland, the distinguished founder of neurophilosophy, drew from scientific research on the brain to understand its philosophical and ethical implications for identity, consciousness, free will, and memory. In Conscience, she explores how moral systems arise from our physical selves in combination with environmental demands. All social groups have ideals for behavior, even though ethics vary among different cultures and among individuals within each culture. In trying to understand why, Churchland brings together an understanding of the influences of nature and nurture. She looks to evolution to elucidate how, from birth, our brains are configured to form bonds, to cooperate, and to care. She shows how children grow up in society to learn, through repetition and rewards, the norms, values, and behavior that their parents embrace. Conscience delves into scientific studies, particularly the fascinating work on twins, to deepen our understanding of whether people have a predisposition to embrace specific ethical stands. Research on psychopaths illuminates the knowledge about those who abide by no moral system and the explanations science gives for these disturbing individuals. Churchland then turns to philosophy—that of Socrates, Aquinas, and contemporary thinkers like Owen Flanagan—to explore why morality is central to all societies, how it is transmitted through the generations, and why different cultures live by different morals. Her unparalleled ability to join ideas rarely put into dialogue brings light to a subject that speaks to the meaning of being human.

Liberty of Conscience

Liberty of Conscience PDF Author: Martha Craven Nussbaum
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 0465051642
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
An analysis of America's commitment to religious liberty uses political history, philosophical ideas, and key constitutional cases to discuss its basis in six principles: equality, respect for conscience, liberty, accommodation of minorities, nonestablishment, and separation of church and state.

Hegel's Conscience

Hegel's Conscience PDF Author: Dean Moyar
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195391993
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This book provides a new interpretation of the ethical theory of G.W.F. Hegel. The aim is not only to give a new interpretation for specialists in German Idealism, but also to provide an analysis that makes Hegel's ethics accessible for all scholars working in ethical and political philosophy. While Hegel's political philosophy has received a good deal of attention in the literature, the core of his ethics has eluded careful exposition, in large part because it is contained in his claims about conscience. This book shows that, contrary to accepted wisdom, conscience is the central concept for understanding Hegel's view of practical reason and therefore for understanding his ethics as a whole. The argument combines careful exegesis of key passages in Hegel's texts with detailed treatments of problems in contemporary ethics and reconstructions of Hegel's answers to those problems. The main goals are to render comprehensible Hegel's notoriously difficult texts by framing arguments with debates in contemporary ethics, and to show that Hegel still has much to teach us about the issues that matter to us most. Central topics covered in the book are the connection of self-consciousness and agency, the relation of motivating and justifying reasons, moral deliberation and the holism of moral reasoning, mutual recognition, and the rationality of social institutions.

Conscience and Its Enemies

Conscience and Its Enemies PDF Author: Robert P. George
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 150403645X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
“Many in elite circles yield to the temptation to believe that anyone who disagrees with them is a bigot or a religious fundamentalist. Reason and science, they confidently believe, are on their side. With this book, I aim to expose the emptiness of that belief.” From the introduction: Assaults on religious liberty and traditional morality are growing fiercer. Here, at last, is the counterattack. Showcasing the talents that have made him one of America’s most acclaimed and influential thinkers, Robert P. George explodes the myth that the secular elite represents the voice of reason. In fact, George shows, it is on the elite side of the cultural divide where the prevailing views frequently are nothing but articles of faith. Conscience and Its Enemies reveals the bankruptcy of these too often smugly held orthodoxies while presenting powerfully reasoned arguments for classical virtues.