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David Hume: Moral and Political Theorist

Russell Hardin

This book presents a new explication of David Hume's moral and political theory. With Hume, the book holds that our normative views can be scientifically explained but they cannot be ... More

This book presents a new explication of David Hume's moral and political theory. With Hume, the book holds that our normative views can be scientifically explained but they cannot be justified as true. Hume argued for the psychological basis of such views. In particular, he argued for sympathy as the mirroring of the psychological sensations and emotions of others. By placing Hume in the developing tradition of social science, as a strong forerunner of his younger friend Adam Smith, the book demonstrates Hume's strong strategic sense, his nascent utilitarianism, his powerful theory of convention as a main source of social and political order, and his recognition of moral and political theory as a single enterprise. Less

Deadly Vices

Gabriele Taylor

This book focuses on the vices, which in Christian theology were most commonly selected as bringing death to the soul. These are sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. ... More

This book focuses on the vices, which in Christian theology were most commonly selected as bringing death to the soul. These are sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. The discussions concentrate on the essence of each vice, and treat their possessors as personifications. They will show a structural resemblance to each other, but there is no suggestion that all vices are of that type. It is shown that vices are harmful to their possessor, and negative support is given for some central claims of an Aristotelean-type virtue-theory. Less

Death, Dying, and Organ Transplantation: Reconstructing Medical Ethics at the End of Life

Franklin G. Miller, Robert D. Truog

This book challenges fundamental doctrines of established medical ethics. It is argued that the routine practice of stopping life support technology causes the death of patients and that ... More

This book challenges fundamental doctrines of established medical ethics. It is argued that the routine practice of stopping life support technology causes the death of patients and that donors of vital organs (hearts, liver, lungs, and both kidneys) are not really dead at the time that their organs are removed for life-saving transplantation. Although these practices are ethically legitimate, they are not compatible with traditional medical ethics: they conflict with the norms that doctors must not intentionally cause the death of their patients and that vital organs can be obtained only from dead donors. The aim of this book is to undertake an ethical examination that aims to honestly face the reality of medical practices at the end of life. This involves exposing the misconception that stopping life support merely allows patients to die from their medical conditions, that there is an ethical bright line separating withdrawal of life support from active euthanasia, and that determination of death of hospitalized patients prior to vital organ donation is consistent with the established biological conception of death. A novel ethical justification is required for procuring vital organs from still-living donors. It is contended that in the context of plans to withdraw life support, donors of vital organs are not harmed or wronged by organ procurement prior to death, provided that valid consent is obtained for stopping treatment and organ donation. In view of serious practical difficulties in facing the truth regarding organ donation, an alternative pragmatic account is developed for justifying current practices that relies on the concept of transparent legal fictions. In sum, it is the thesis of this book that to preserve the legitimacy of end-of-life practices, we need to reconstruct medical ethics. Less

The Development of Ethics: Volume 1: From Socrates to the Reformation

Terence Irwin

This book presents a historical and critical study of the development of moral philosophy over 2,000 years, from ancient Greece to the Reformation. Starting with ... More

This book presents a historical and critical study of the development of moral philosophy over 2,000 years, from ancient Greece to the Reformation. Starting with the seminal ideas of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, it looks through the centuries that follow, introducing each of the thinkers it discusses with generous quotations from their works. The book offers not only careful interpretation but critical evaluation of what they have to offer philosophically. Less

Dignity, Rank, and Rights

Jeremy Waldron

Meir Dan-Cohen (ed.)

Writers on human dignity roughly divide between those who stress the social origins of this concept and its role in marking rank and hierarchy, and those who follow Kant in grounding ... More

Writers on human dignity roughly divide between those who stress the social origins of this concept and its role in marking rank and hierarchy, and those who follow Kant in grounding dignity in an abstract and idealized philosophical conception of human beings. This book contrives to combine attractive features of both strands. The first lecture in this book presents a conception of dignity that preserves its ancient association with rank and station, thus tapping into rich historical resources while avoiding what many perceive as the excessive abstraction and dubious metaphysics of the Kantian strand. At the same time the text argues for a conception of human dignity that amounts to a generalization of high status across all human beings, and so attains the appealing universality of the Kantian position. The second lecture focuses particularly on the importance of dignity—understood in this way—as a status defining persons' relation to law: their presentation as persons capable of self-applying the law, capable of presenting and arguing a point of view, and capable of responding to law's demands without brute coercion. Together the two lectures illuminate the relation between dignity conceived as the ground of rights and dignity conceived as the content of rights. They also illuminate important ideas about dignity as noble bearing and dignity as the subject of a right against degrading treatment; and they help us understand the sense in which dignity is better conceived as a status than as a kind of value. Less

Disagreement

Richard Feldman, Ted A. Warfield (eds)

Disagreement is common. Even informed, intelligent, and generally reasonable people often come to different conclusions when confronted with what seems to be the same evidence. Can the ... More

Disagreement is common. Even informed, intelligent, and generally reasonable people often come to different conclusions when confronted with what seems to be the same evidence. Can the competing conclusions be reasonable? If not, what can we reasonably think about the situation? This book examines the epistemology of disagreement, with a focus on disagreements involving epistemic peers. Philosophical questions about disagreement arise in various areas, notably politics, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion: this book focuses on the general epistemic issues arising from informed disagreement. Ten leading philosophers offer specially written chapters which together will offer a starting-point for future work on this topic. Less

Divine Teaching and the Way of the World: A Defense of Revealed Religion

Samuel Fleischacker

This book defends what the Enlightenment called ‘revealed religion’: religions that regard a certain text or oral teaching as sacred, as wholly authoritative over one's life. At the same ... More

This book defends what the Enlightenment called ‘revealed religion’: religions that regard a certain text or oral teaching as sacred, as wholly authoritative over one's life. At the same time, it maintains that revealed religions stand in danger of corruption or fanaticism unless they are combined with secular scientific practices and a secular morality. The first two parts of the book argue that the cognitive and moral practices of a society should prescind from religious commitments—they constitute a secular ‘way of the world,’ to adapt a phrase from the Jewish tradition, allowing human beings to work together regardless of their religious differences. However, the way of the world breaks down when it comes to the question of what we live for, and it is this that revealed religions can illumine. A long investigation suggests that secular conceptions of why life is worth living tend to be poorly grounded. The rest of the book explores what revelation is, how it can answer the question of worth better than secular worldviews do, and how the revealed and way‐of‐the‐world elements of a religious tradition can be brought together. Less

The Emotional Construction of Morals

Jesse Prinz

This book argues that recent work in philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology supports two radical hypotheses about the nature of morality: moral values are based on emotional ... More

This book argues that recent work in philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology supports two radical hypotheses about the nature of morality: moral values are based on emotional responses, and these emotional responses are inculcated by culture, not hard-wired through natural selection. In the first half of the book, the hypothesis that morality has an emotional foundation is defended. Evidence from brain imaging, social psychology, and psychopathology suggest that, when we judge something to be right or wrong, we are merely expressing our emotions. The book claims that these emotions do not track objective features of reality; rather, the rightness and wrongness of an act consists in the fact that people are disposed to have certain emotions towards it. In the second half of the book, it turns to a defence of moral relativism. Moral facts depend on emotional responses, and emotional responses vary from culture to culture. The book surveys the anthropological record to establish moral variation, and draws on cultural history to show how attitudes toward practices such as cannibalism and marriage change over time. It also criticizes evidence from animal behaviour and child development that has been taken to support the claim that moral attitudes are hard-wired by natural selection. The book concludes that there is no single true morality, but also argues that some moral values are better than others; moral progress is possible. Less