The Rich and the Poor is part chronicle, part analysis of a disturbing sea-change: the abandonment of ethics in public policy. Seventy years ago, it was possible for serious thinkers, including some in the governments of affluent nations, to consider policies for raising living standards worldwide. Today, by contrast, the principal policy questions revolve around how to stay on top in a dog-eat-dog world.

Philip Kitcher, one of the world's most eminent philosophers, offers a new account of how ethics and politics should mix. The world needs to explore and reprioritize ethical questions, through inclusive deliberation that is both factually informed and mutually engaged with other perspectives. Achieving that end is hard, but without aspiring to it, we are likely to condemn our successors to lives of great hardship. Climate change demands global cooperation of a kind that can only be obtained by returning to ethical inquiry. The divorce between ethics and economics threatens disaster for all.

About the Author
Philip Kitcher is the John Dewey Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University.

Reviews
"A powerful call for pursuing an idealistic, hopeful path towards moral progress and social justice."
Kai Spiekermann, Department of Government, London School of Economics



Book Information
ISBN 9781509563470
Author Philip Kitcher
Format Hardback
Page Count 200
Imprint Polity Press
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd