Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Levinas's account of responsibility challenges dominant notions of time, autonomy, and subjectivity according to Cynthia D. Coe. Employing the concept of trauma in Levinas's late writings, Coe draws together his understanding of time and his claim that...

Distinguished feminist philosophers consider the future of their field and chart its political and ethical course in this forward-looking volume. Engaging with themes such as the historical trajectory of feminist phenomenology, ways of perceiving and...

Addressing perspectives about who "we" are, the importance of place and home, and the many differences that still separate individuals, this volume reimagines cosmopolitanism in light of our differences, including the different places we all...

Kierkegaard's God and the Good Life focuses on faith and love, two central topics in Kierkegaard's writings, to grapple with complex questions at the intersection of religion and ethics. Here, leading scholars reflect on Kierkegaard's understanding of...

Moral philosophy has long been dominated by the aim of understanding morality and the virtues in terms of principles. However, the underlying assumption that this is the best approach has received almost no defence, and has been attacked by...

Lainie Ross presents a rigorous critical investigation of the development of policy governing the involvement of children in medical research. She examines the shift in focus from protection of medical research subjects, enshrined in post-World War II...

Structured around the five most important schools within contemporary political theory: liberalism, utilitarianism, communitarianism, Marxism and feminism, this is the first introductory level text to offer an accessible overview on the status of animals...

Americans increasingly cite moral values as a factor in how they vote, but when we define morality simply in terms of a voter's position on gay marriage and abortion, we lose sight of the ethical decisions that guide our everyday lives. In our encounters...

Normativity concerns what we ought to think or do and the evaluations we make. For example, we say that we ought to think consistently, we ought to keep our promises, or that Mozart is a better composer than Salieri. Yet what philosophical moral can we...

Robert Myers presents an original moral theory which charts a course between the extremes of consequentialism and contractualism. He puts forward a radically new case for the existence of both agent-neutral and agent-relative values, and gives an...

Oxford Studies in Metaethics is the only publication devoted exclusively to original philosophical work in the foundations of ethics. It provides an annual selection of much of the best new scholarship being done in the field. Its broad purview includes...

The Beloved Self is about the holy grail of moral philosophy, an argument against egoism that proves that we all have reasons to be moral. Part One introduces three different versions of egoism. Part Two looks at attempts to prove that egoism is false,...

The Ideal of a Rational Morality collects the most important essays by the distinguished moral philosopher Marcus G. Singer. Its guiding theme is the concept of a morality based in reason, which is presupposed in ordinary moral contexts and provides an...

In contemporary philosophy, substantive moral theories are typically classified as either consequentialist or deontological. Standard consequentialist theories insist, roughly, that agents must always act so as to produce the best available outcomes...

Nerlich argues that normal human animals are naturally endowed with certain attributes for being persons, speakers of an articulate language living in a culture. Language and cultural life require self-appraisal, and hence an evolution, through...

Can wrongs be righted? Can we make up for our misdeeds, or does the impossibility of changing the past mean that we remain permanently guilty? While atonement is traditionally considered a theological topic, Making Amends uses the resources of secular...

This compact and innovative book tackles one of the central issues in drug policy: the lack of a coherent conceptual structure for thinking about drugs. Drugs generally fall into one of seven categories: prescription, over the counter, alternative...

Ethics and Qualities of Life looks at what enters into ethical judgment and choice. Interpretation of a case and of what the options are is always a factor, as is a sense of the possible values at stake. Intuitions also enter in, but often are unreliable...

Margaret Pabst Battin has established a reputation as one of the top philosophers working in bioethics today. This work is a sequel to Battin's 1994 volume The Least Worst Death. The last ten years have seen fast-moving developments in end-of-life...

Morals from Motives develops a virtue ethics inspired more by moral sentimentalism than by recently-influential Aristotelianism. It argues that a reconfigured and expanded 'morality of caring' can offer a general account of right and wrong action and...

This book combines the two most common approaches used to introduce students or general readers to ethics: the historical and the applied. Using these approaches, Sterba examines traditional ethical theories and disagreements, exploring Aristotelian,...

Moral epistemology is the term for thinking about how a moral belief can be justified. All contentious moral issues --from gay marriage to terrorism--raise difficult questions about the formation and status of moral beliefs. If we do form an opinion, how...

Blame is an unpopular and neglected notion: it goes against the grain of a therapeutically-oriented culture and has received relatively little philosophical attention. This book discusses questions about its nature, normative status, and relation to...

This is a selection of essays on moral responsibility that represent the major components of John Martin Fischer's overall approach to freedom of the will and moral responsibility. The collection exhibits the overall structure of Fischer's view and shows...

The scholars who defend or dispute moral relativism, the idea that a moral principle cannot be applied to people whose culture does not accept it, have concerned themselves with either the philosophical or anthropological aspects of relativism. This...

This collection focuses on questions that arise when morality is considered from the perspective of recent work on rational choice and evolution. Linking questions like "Is it rational to be moral?" to the evolution of cooperation in "The...

Bedau demonstrates the usefulness of 'casuistry', or 'the method of cases' in arriving at moral decisions. He examines well-known cases that compel us to consider questions about who ought to survive when not all can. By doing so, we learn something...

Our lives are such that moral wrongdoing is sometimes inescapable for us. We have moral responsibilities to persons which may conflict and which it is wrong to violate even when they do conflict. Christopher W. Gowans argues that we must accept this...

Contemporary philosophers have grown increasingly sceptical toward both morality and moral theory. Some argue that moral theory is a radically misguided enterprise which does not illuminate moral practice, while others simply deny the value of morality...

R. M. Hare is well known both for his seminal work in ethical theory and for his applications of it to practical issues. For this volume he has selected the best of his writings on medical ethics and related topics. Its chief theoretical interest lies in...

In Better than Human?, noted bioethicist Allen Buchanan grapples with the ethical dilemmas of the medical revolution now upon us. Biomedical enhancements, he writes, can make us smarter, have better memories, be stronger, quicker, have more stamina, live...

A blindfolded woman holding a balance and a sword personifies one of our most significant virtues. We find Lady Justice in statues and paintings that adorn courts and other institutions of law, symbolizing strength and impartiality. Yet why do we...

This edited collection is intended as a primer for core concepts and principles in research ethics and as an in-depth exploration of the contextualization of these principles in practice across key disciplines. The material is nested so that readers can...

An Yves R. Simon Reader is the first collection of texts from the entirety of the philosopher's work. French Catholic (and then American) political philosopher Yves R. Simon was a student of Jacques Maritain and one of the most important figures in the...

Ethical Prospects: Economy, Society, and Environment aims to present and summarize new perspectives and leading-edge results in ethics reflecting on interconnected economic, social and environmental issues. The yearbook reports on innovative practices...

Freedom of the sort implicated in acting freely or with free will is important to the truth of different sorts of moral judgment, such as judgments of moral responsibility and those of moral obligation. Little thought, however, has been invested into...

The Ethics of Agricultural Intensification: An Interdisciplinary and International Conversation Paul B. Thompson and John Otieno Ouko* Global agriculture faces a number of challenges as the world approaches the second decade of the third millennium...

Practical ethics training is now a requirement of nearly all professional training programmes. This timely and accessible book provides sustained, critical and multi-disciplinary treatment of the important and much-discussed question of addressing...

This volume is an edited collection of original papers on the theme of "Values, Rational Choice, and the Will". The editor is a Stanford-trained moral philosopher, and the organizer of a conference held on April 1-3, 2004. The conference...

human practices? How are we to morally evaluate technology developments that have open horizons, encompass uncertainties, and lack control? Technology is in- uential on society; technological innovations act upon the perception of ourselves, the world,...