Morality What S In It For Me

Author : William N. Nelson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2019-02-22
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780429722295

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Morality: What's In It For Me? by William N. Nelson Pdf

How are the demands of morality related to the needs, interests, and projects of people? Are they a burden, or are they good for us? Are they nothing but arbitrary impositions, or should we expect them to be justified? And will the answers to these questions tell us why and whether we should be moral? In this short, accessible text, William Nelson poses these questions in a form appropriate for beginning students and treats them in a way that both they and their teachers will appreciate. In the company of major figures from the history of ethics, Nelson explores the key issues surrounding topics like egoism, altruism, the good life, and the requirements of morality. A special strength of his presentation is the way he demonstrates how the views of these historical figures prefigure the theories espoused by different schools of contemporary thought. Students get not only the historical positions in terms of which contemporary debates are framed but also up-to-date discussions of utilitarianism, contractualism, problems of collective action, and the relations between virtue and duty-based theories. Nelson’s own view that morality is not a single subject matter enables him to show how each of the historical traditions has a role to play in a coherent and defensible pluralistic account of morality. At the core of this pluralism is a commitment to the democratic view that morality must not merely serve practical human purposes, but it must also be justified to the people it governs. Imaginative and insightful, intelligent and informed, this is an excellent first text for students of ethics and the history of ethics.

Author : Heather Widdows
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2020-02-25
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780691197142

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Perfect Me by Heather Widdows Pdf

How looking beautiful has become a moral imperative in today's worldThe demand to be beautiful is increasingly important in today's visual and virtual culture. Rightly or wrongly, being perfect has become an ethical ideal to live by, and according to which we judge ourselves good or bad, a success or a failure. Perfect Me explores the changing nature of the beauty ideal, showing how it is more dominant, more demanding, and more global than ever before.Heather Widdows argues that our perception of the self is changing. More and more, we locate the self in the body--not just our actual, flawed bodies but our transforming and imagined ones. As this happens, we further embrace the beauty ideal. Nobody is firm enough, thin enough, smooth enough, or buff enough-not without significant effort and cosmetic intervention. And as more demanding practices become the norm, more will be required of us, and the beauty ideal will be harder and harder to resist.If you have ever felt the urge to "make the best of yourself" or worried that you were "letting yourself go," this book explains why. Perfect Me examines how the beauty ideal has come to define how we see ourselves and others and how we structure our daily practices-and how it enthralls us with promises of the good life that are dubious at best. Perfect Me demonstrates that we must first recognize the ethical nature of the beauty ideal if we are ever to address its harms.

Author : Bernard Gert
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 426 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Ethics
ISBN : 9780195122565

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Morality by Bernard Gert Pdf

In this final revision of the classic work, the author has produced the fullest and most sophisticated account of this influential theoretical model. Here, he makes clear that morality is an informal system that does not provide unique answers to every moral question but does always limit the range of morally acceptable options, and so explains why some moral disagreements cannot be resolved. The importance placed on the moral ideals also makes clear that the moral rules are only one part of the moral system. A chapter that is devoted to justifying violations of the rules illustrates how the moral rules are embedded in the system and cannot be adequately understood independently of it. The chapter on reasons includes a new account of what makes one reason better than another and elucidates the complex hybrid nature of rationality.

Author : Michael J. Sandel
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2009-09-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781429952682

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Justice by Michael J. Sandel Pdf

A renowned Harvard professor's brilliant, sweeping, inspiring account of the role of justice in our society--and of the moral dilemmas we face as citizens What are our obligations to others as people in a free society? Should government tax the rich to help the poor? Is the free market fair? Is it sometimes wrong to tell the truth? Is killing sometimes morally required? Is it possible, or desirable, to legislate morality? Do individual rights and the common good conflict? Michael J. Sandel's "Justice" course is one of the most popular and influential at Harvard. Up to a thousand students pack the campus theater to hear Sandel relate the big questions of political philosophy to the most vexing issues of the day, and this fall, public television will air a series based on the course. Justice offers readers the same exhilarating journey that captivates Harvard students. This book is a searching, lyrical exploration of the meaning of justice, one that invites readers of all political persuasions to consider familiar controversies in fresh and illuminating ways. Affirmative action, same-sex marriage, physician-assisted suicide, abortion, national service, patriotism and dissent, the moral limits of markets—Sandel dramatizes the challenge of thinking through these con?icts, and shows how a surer grasp of philosophy can help us make sense of politics, morality, and our own convictions as well. Justice is lively, thought-provoking, and wise—an essential new addition to the small shelf of books that speak convincingly to the hard questions of our civic life.

Author : Alastair Norcross
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2020-03-25
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780192583598

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Morality by Degrees by Alastair Norcross Pdf

In Morality by Degrees, Alastair Norcross articulates and defends a radical new approach to ethical theory. Consequentialist theories of the right connect the rightness and wrongness (and related notions) of actions with the intrinsic goodness and badness of states of affairs consequential on those actions. The most popular such theory is maximization, which is said to demand of agents that they maximize the good, that they do the best they can, at all times. Thus it may seem that consequentialist theories are overly demanding, and, relatedly, that they cannot accommodate the phenomenon of going above and beyond the demands of duty. However, a clear understanding of consequentialism leaves no room for a theory of the right, at least not at the fundamental level of the theory. A consequentialist theory, such as utilitarianism, is a theory of how to rank outcomes, and derivatively actions, which provides reasons for choosing some actions over others. It is thus a purely scalar theory, with no demands that certain actions be performed, and no fundamental classification of actions as right or wrong. However, such notions may have pragmatic benefits at the level of application, since many people find it easier to guide their conduct by simple commands, rather than to think in terms of reasons of varying strength to do one thing rather than another. A contextualist semantics for various terms, such as ", ", ", when combined with the scalar approach to consequentialism, allows for the expression of truth-apt propositions with sentences containing such terms.

Author : Christina Hendricks,George Matthews
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 118 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2020-02-27
Category : Education
ISBN : 1989014186

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Introduction to Philosophy by Christina Hendricks,George Matthews Pdf

We often make judgments about good and bad, right and wrong. Philosophical ethics is the critical examination of these and other concepts central to how we evaluate our own and each others' behavior and choices. This text examines some of the main threads of discussion on these topics that have developed over the last couple of millenia, mostly within the Western cultural tradition.The book is designed to be used alone or alongside a reader of historical and contemporary original sources, and is freely available in web and digital formats at https: //press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-ethics/. If you are adopting or adapting this book for a course, please let us know on our adoption form for the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook series: https: //docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdwf2E7bRGvWefjhNZ07kgpgnNFxVxxp-iidPE5gfDBQNGBGg/viewform?usp=sf_link. Cover art by Heather Salazar; cover design by Jonathan Lashley. One of nine books in the Introduction to Philosophy open textbook serie

Author : David Shaw,David M. Shaw
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Eugenics
ISBN : 3039111493

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Genetic Morality by David Shaw,David M. Shaw Pdf

Cloning, embryo research and genetic modification are three of the most controversial issues of our time. Is it ethical to use cloning as a means of reproduction? Are embryos people? Is there a difference between removing genetic disease and creating «designer babies»? This book will attempt to show that these and other problems are ultimately resolvable, given careful and unbiased application of established ethical principles, many of which underlie common morality. These principles, when applied to the problems of the new genetic technologies, form the basis of a new genetic morality. This book applies established principles of biomedical ethics to the new genetic technologies and examines the ethical implications of reproductive and therapeutic cloning, genetic modification and stem cell research from a deontological and a rule-utilitarian perspective. Finally, it seeks to establish what, if anything, is wrong with each of these practices, and why.

Author : Frank Herbert Matthews
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 1898
Category : Moral education
ISBN : UOM:39015063619277

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A Dialogue on Moral Education by Frank Herbert Matthews Pdf

Author : Sam Harris
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2011-09-13
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781439171226

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The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris Pdf

Sam Harris dismantles the most common justification for religious faith--that a moral system cannot be based on science.

Author : Yang Xiao,Yong Huang
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2014-02-03
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781438450964

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Moral Relativism and Chinese Philosophy by Yang Xiao,Yong Huang Pdf

Original, influential, and often controversial, ethicist David Wong defends forms of moral relativism. His 1984 Moral Relativity was a study of this concept, and his 2006 Natural Moralities presented a new and sophisticated account of it. Wong's vision is of a pluralistic moral relativism; he does not defend all forms of relativism but evaluates what moralities may be true. His singular philosophy reflects his deep knowledge of Confucian and Daoist thought. In this book, moral philosophers and scholars of Chinese thought debate ideas central to Wong's work and Wong responds to them. The discussion ranges widely, including exploring Wong's thought on naturalism, criteria for moralities, the principle of charity, moral authority, and the concept of community, and looking at his readings of Xunzi and Zhuangzi. Wong's nuanced and forceful responses clarify and develop further arguments in his work. These engaging and critical exchanges between Wong and his critics illuminate not only Wong's thought, but also contemporary ethical theory and Chinese philosophy.

Author : Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2005-11-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781139447133

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Fichte: The System of Ethics by Johann Gottlieb Fichte Pdf

Fichte's System of Ethics, published in 1798, is at once the most accessible presentation of its author's comprehensive philosophical project, The Science of Knowledge or Wissenschaftslehre, and the most important work in moral philosophy written between Kant and Hegel. Fichte's ethics integrates the discussion of our moral duties into the systematic framework of a transcendental theory of the human subject. Its major philosophical themes include the practical nature of self-consciousness, the relation between reason and volition, the essential role of the drives in human willing, the possibility of changing the natural world, the reality of one's own body, the reality of other human beings, and the practical necessity of social relations between human beings. This volume offers a translation of the work together with an introduction that sets it in its philosophical and historical contexts.

Author : Beatrix Himmelmann,Robert Louden
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2015-09-25
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9783110366396

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Why Be Moral? by Beatrix Himmelmann,Robert Louden Pdf

What reasons do we have to be moral, and are these reasons more compelling than the reasons we have to pursue non-moral projects? Ever since the Sophists first raised this question, it has been a focal point of debate. Why be Moral? is a collection of new essays on this fundamental philosophical problem, written by an international team of leading scholars in the field.

Author : James M'Cann (D.D.)
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 124 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 1882
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OXFORD:590634029

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Secularism: unphilosophical, immoral, and anti-social, verbatim report of a debate between dr. McCann and C. Bradlaugh by James M'Cann (D.D.) Pdf

Author : Eliakim Littell,Robert S. Littell
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 844 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 1888
Category : Electronic
ISBN : IND:32000000694028

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Littell's Living Age by Eliakim Littell,Robert S. Littell Pdf

Author : Robert Malcolm Murray
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 411 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2017
Category : Contractarianism (Ethics).
ISBN : 9780773551114

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Morals and Consent by Robert Malcolm Murray Pdf

How are we meant to behave? And how are we to defend whatever answer we give? Morals and Consent grounds our notion of morality in natural evolution, and from that basis, Malcolm Murray shows why contractarianism is a far more viable moral theory than is widely believed. The scope of Morals and Consent has two main parts: theory and application. In his discussion of theory, Murray defends contractarianism by appealing to evolutionary game theory and metaethical analyses. His main argument is that we are not going to find morality as an objective fact in the world, and that instead, we can understand morality as a reciprocal cooperative trait. From this minimal moral architecture, Murray derives his innovative consent principle. The application of the theory, detailing what contractarians can - or ought to - say about moral matters, takes up the greater portion of the work. Murray offers a trenchant examination of what moral constraints we can claim concerning death (abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment), sex (pornography, prostitution, and sexual assault), beneficence (toward present and future people, animals, and the environment), and liberty (genetic enhancement, organ sales, and torture). By focusing on evolutionary contractarianism and the epistemic justification of our moral claims - or lack thereof - Malcolm Murray's Morals and Consent is a serious advance in the field of applied ethics and fills an important void.