Download or read book Hobbesian Applied Ethics and Public Policy written by Shane D. Courtland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-20 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most philosophers and political scientists readily admit that Thomas Hobbes is a significant figure in the history of political thought. His theory was, arguably, one of the first to provide a justification for political legitimacy from the perspective of each individual subject. Many excellent books and articles have examined the justification and structure of Hobbes’ commonwealth, ethical system, and interpretation of Christianity. What is troubling is that the Hobbesian project has been largely missing in the applied ethics and public policy literature. We often find applications of Kantian deontology, Bentham’s or Mill’s utilitarianism, Rawls’s contractualism, the ethics of care, and various iterations of virtue ethics. Hobbesian accounts are routinely ignored and often derided. This is unfortunate because Hobbes’s project offers a unique perspective. To ignore it, when such a perspective would be fruitful to apply to another set of theoretical questions, is a problem in need of a remedy. This volume seeks to eliminate (or, at the very least, partially fill) this gap in the literature. Not only will this volume appeal to those that are generally familiar with Hobbesian scholarship, it will also appeal to a variety of readers that are largely unfamiliar with Hobbes.

Download or read book Interpreting Hobbes s Political Philosophy written by S. A. Lloyd and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-02-07 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details the current state of scholarly debate on crucial elements of Hobbesian political philosophy and presents innovative and original arguments.

Download or read book Hobbes on Justice written by Johan Olsthoorn and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-10-31 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is widely regarded as one of the most important political thinkers in the Western tradition. Justice is one of the main political concepts today. This is the first book-length analysis of Hobbes's ideas on justice. Hobbes made many startling claims about justice. Norms of justice have no place outside the commonwealth, the civil law determines what is just and unjust, and nothing sovereigns do is unjust to their citizens. But what exactly did Hobbes mean by justice? And how did he convince his audience that he was speaking about justice when advancing such controversial views, and not about something else? In Hobbes on Justice, Olsthoorn traces the place of justice in Hobbes's moral, legal, political, and international thought as developed over time. The book reconstructs his idiosyncratic glosses on notions like justice, rights, injury, obligation, and law; proposes new solutions to some long-standing interpretive puzzles; and provides in-depth discussions of property, slavery, treason, just war and other neglected aspects of Hobbes's thought. Olsthoorn shows that Hobbes's theory of justice doubled as a civil theodicy: it aimed to morally empower sovereign rulers by vindicating them from all stains of injustice, no matter how horrid their rule. Combining analytic philosophy, intellectual history, and political theory, this major new study of Thomas Hobbes will be of wide and cross-disciplinary interest to scholars of philosophy, law, politics, and history.

Download or read book A Companion to Hobbes written by Marcus P. Adams and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers comprehensive treatment of Thomas Hobbes’s thought, providing readers with different ways of understanding Hobbes as a systematic philosopher As one of the founders of modern political philosophy, Thomas Hobbes is best known for his ideas regarding the nature of legitimate government and the necessity of society submitting to the absolute authority of sovereign power. Yet Hobbes produced a wide range of writings, from translations of texts by Homer and Thucydides, to interpretations of Biblical books, to works devoted to geometry, optics, morality, and religion. Hobbes viewed himself as presenting a unified method for theoretical and practical science—an interconnected system of philosophy that provides many entry points into his thought. A Companion to Hobbes is an expertly curated collection of essays offering close textual engagement with the thought of Thomas Hobbes in his major works while probing his ideas regarding natural philosophy, mathematics, human nature, civil philosophy, religion, and more. The Companion discusses the ways in which scholars have tried to understand the unity and diversity of Hobbes’s philosophical system and examines the reception of the different parts of Hobbes’s philosophy by thinkers such as René Descartes, Margaret Cavendish, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. Presenting a diversity of fresh perspectives by both emerging and established scholars, this volume: Provides a comprehensive treatment of Hobbes’s thought in his works, including Elements of Law, Elements of Philosophy, and Leviathan Explores the connecting points between Hobbes’ metaphysics, epistemology, mathematics, natural philosophy, morality, and civil philosophy Offers readers strategies for understanding how the parts of Hobbes’s philosophical system fit together Examines Hobbes’s philosophy of mathematics and his attempts to understand geometrical objects and definitions Considers Hobbes’s philosophy in contexts such as the natural state of humans, gender relations, and materialist worldviews Challenges conceptions of Hobbes’s moral theory and his views about the rights of sovereigns Part of the acclaimed Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, A Companion to Hobbes is an invaluable resource for scholars and advanced students of Early modern thought, particularly those from disciplines such as History of Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Intellectual History, History of Politics, Political Theory, and English.

Download or read book Leviathan written by Thomas Hobbes and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-10-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written during a moment in English history when the political and social structures were in flux and open to interpretation, Leviathan played an essential role in the development of the modern world.

Download or read book Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary written by Christopher Holman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2022-10-01 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when nearly all political actors and observers—despite the nature of their normative commitments—morally appeal to the language of democracy, the particular signification of the term has become obscured. Hobbes and the Democratic Imaginary argues that critical engagement with various elements of the work of Hobbes, a notorious critic of democracy, can deepen our understanding of the problems, stakes, and ethics of democratic life. Firstly, Hobbes's descriptive anatomy of democratic sovereignty reveals what is essential to the institution of this form of government, in the face of the conceptual confusion that characterizes the contemporary deployment of democratic terminology. Secondly, Hobbes's critique of the mechanics of democracy points toward certain fundamental political risks that are internal to its mode of operation. And thirdly, contrary to Hobbes's own intentions, Christopher Holman shows how the selective redeployment of certain Hobbesian categories could help construct a normative ground in which democracy is the ethical choice in relation to other sovereign forms.

Download or read book The Value and Limits of Academic Speech written by Donald Alexander Downs and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free speech has been a historically volatile issue in higher education. In recent years, however, there has been a surge of progressive censorship on campus. This wave of censorship has been characterized by the explosive growth of such policies as "trigger warnings" for course materials; "safe spaces" where students are protected from speech they consider harmful or distressing; "micro-aggression" policies that often strongly discourage the use of words that might offend sensitive individuals; new "bias-reporting" programs that consist of different degrees of campus surveillance; the "dis-invitation" of a growing list of speakers, including many in the mainstream of American politics and values; and the prominent "shouting down" or disruption of speakers deemed inconsistent with progressive ideology. Not to be outdone, external forces on the right are now engaging in social media bullying of speakers and teachers whose views upset them. The essays in this collection, written by prominent philosophers, political scientists, sociologists, and legal scholars, examine the issues at the forefront of the crisis of free speech in higher education. The contributors address the broader historical, cultural, legal, and normative contexts of the current crisis, and take care to analyze the role of "due process" in protecting academic freedom and individuals accused of misconduct. Additionally, the volume is unique in that it advances practical remedies to campus censorship, as the editors and many of the contributors have participated in movements to remedy limitations on free speech and open inquiry. The Value and Limits of Academic Speech will educate academic professionals and informed citizens about the phenomenon of progressive censorship and its implications for higher education and the republic.

Download or read book The Ethics of Counterterrorism written by Isaac Taylor and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-11 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: States across the globe spend billions of dollars fighting terrorism annually. As well as strategic questions about the way in which the money should be spent, we are also confronted with a host of moral issues here, many of which are poorly understood. The Ethics of Counterterrorism offers the first systematic normative theory for guiding, assessing, and criticising counterterrorist policy. Many commentators claim that state actors combating terrorism should set aside ordinary moral and legal frameworks, and instead bind themselves by a different (and, generally, more permissive) set of ethical rules than is appropriate in other areas. The book assesses arguments for this view, and more specifically investigates whether widely-endorsed restrictions on state action in the areas of surveillance, policing, armed conflict, criminal justice, diplomacy, and cultural integration need to be weakened when we are confronted with terrorist threats. With its novel overall framework for assessing counterterrorist strategies, its comprehensive analysis of existing practices, and its bringing the tools of analytic philosophy to bear on new questions regarding how states can fight terrorism both effectively and morally, The Ethics of Counterterrorism promises to be an important point of reference for future debates in this area.

Download or read book The Injustice of Punishment written by Bruce N. Waller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Injustice of Punishment emphasizes that we can never make sense of moral responsibility while also acknowledging that punishment is sometimes unavoidable. Recognizing both the injustice and the necessity of punishment is painful but also beneficial. It motivates us to find effective means of minimizing both the use and severity of punishment, and encourages deeper inquiry into the causes of destructive behavior and how to change those causes in order to reduce the need for punishment. There is an emerging alternative to the comfortable but destructive system of moral responsibility and just deserts. That alternative is not the creation of philosophers but of sociologists, criminologists, psychologists, and workplace engineers; it was developed, tested, and employed in factories, prisons, hospitals, and other settings; and it is writ large in the practices of cultures that minimize belief in individual moral responsibility. The alternative marks a promising path to less punishment, less coercive control, deeper common commitment, and more genuine freedom.

Download or read book Media Ethics Free Speech and the Requirements of Democracy written by Carl Fox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we understand, protect, and discharge our rights and responsibilities as citizens in a democratic society committed to the principle of political equality is intimately connected to the standards and behaviour of our media in general, and our news media in particular. However, the media does not just stand between the citizenry and their leaders, or indeed between citizens and each other. The media is often the site where individuals attempt to realise some of the most fundamental democratic liberties, including the right to free speech. Media Ethics, Free Speech, and the Requirements of Democracy explores the conflict between the rights that people exercise in, and through, the modern media and the responsibilities that accrue on account of its awesome and increasing power. The individual chapters—written by leading scholars from the US, UK, and Australia—address several recent events and controversial developments in the media, including Brexit, the rise of Trump, Lynton Crosby, Charlie Hebdo, dog-whistle politics, fake news, and political correctness. This much-needed philosophical treatment is a welcome addition to the recent literature in media ethics. It will be of interest to scholars across political and social philosophy, applied ethics, media and communication studies, and political science who are interested in the important issues surrounding the media and free speech and democracy.

Download or read book Ethics and Chronic Illness written by Tom Walker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-17 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an account of the ethics of chronic illness. Chronic illness differs from other illnesses in that it is often incurable, patients can live with it for many years, and its day-to-day management is typically carried out by the patient or members of their family. These features problematise key distinctions that underlie much existing work in medical ethics including those between beneficence and autonomy, between treatment and prevention, and between the recipient and provider of treatment. The author carries out a detailed reappraisal of the roles of both autonomy and beneficence across the different stages of treatment for a range of chronic illnesses. A central part of the author’s argument is that in the treatment of chronic illness, the patient and/or the patient’s family should be seen as acting with healthcare professionals to achieve a common aim. This aspect opens up unexplored questions such as what healthcare professionals should do when patients are managing their illness poorly, the ethical implications of patients being responsible for parts of their treatment, and how to navigate sharing information with those directly involved in patient care without violating privacy or breaching confidentiality. The author addresses these challenges by engaging with philosophical work on shared commitments and joint action, responsibility and justice, and privacy and confidentiality. The Ethics of Chronic Illness provides a new, and much needed, critical reappraisal of healthcare professionals’ obligations to their patients. It will be of interests to academics working in bioethics and medical ethics, philosophers interested in the topics of autonomy, responsibility, and consent, and medical practitioners who treat patients with chronic illness.

Download or read book Friendship Robots and Social Media written by Alexis M. Elder and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Various emerging technologies, from social robotics to social media, appeal to our desire for social interactions, while avoiding some of the risks and costs of face-to-face human interaction. But can they offer us real friendship? In this book, Alexis Elder outlines a theory of friendship drawing on Aristotle and contemporary work on social ontology, and then uses it to evaluate the real value of social robotics and emerging social technologies. In the first part of the book Elder develops a robust and rigorous ontology of friendship: what it is, how it functions, what harms it, and how it relates to familiar ethical and philosophical questions about character, value, and well-being. In Part II she applies this ontology to emerging trends in social robotics and human-robot interaction, including robotic companions for lonely seniors, therapeutic robots used to teach social skills to children on the autism spectrum, and companionate robots currently being developed for consumer markets. Elder articulates the moral hazards presented by these robots, while at the same time acknowledging their real and measurable benefits. In the final section she shifts her focus to connections between real people, especially those enabled by social media. Arguing against critics who have charged that these new communication technologies are weakening our social connections, Elder explores ways in which text messaging, video chats, Facebook, and Snapchat are enabling us to develop, sustain, and enrich our friendship in new and meaningful ways.

Download or read book The Capability Approach in Practice written by Morten Fibieger Byskov and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-11 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a philosophical framework for selecting goals for development purposes. This inclusive and democratic framework integrates a variety of resources including philosophical theory, empirical analysis, stakeholder deliberations, local knowledge, and advice from development experts. The author contends that we must provide good reasons and arguments in order to justify a particular development agenda. That is, we need to ask why we choose certain kinds of development goals over others, why we include certain agents in the selection process and not others, and why we select goals through one method rather than another. In response to these questions, the author argues that development should aim at expanding people’s capabilities and functionings. Capabilities and functionings—capabilities that have been realized—tell us what people are actually able to do and be with their resources, goods, and formal freedoms. He advances the view that local stakeholders should have more authority in deciding what a development agenda looks like. This claim to local authority in development can be interpreted both as a claim to political authority and expert authority. Finally, the author argues that ad hoc, foundational, procedural, and mixed (multi-stage) methods need to be synthesized in order to select the best capabilities and functionings for development. The Capability Approach in Practice provides a philosophical and systematic approach to setting development agendas. It is an important contribution to the literature on the capability approach and development ethics, which will appeal to a broad range of scholars within philosophy and development studies.

Download or read book Does the Pro Life Worldview Make Sense written by Stephen Kershnar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at a family of views involving the pro-life view of abortion and Christianity. These issues are important because major religious branches (for example, Catholicism and some large branches of Evangelicalism) and leading politicians assert, or are committed to, the following: (a) it is permissible to prevent some people from going to hell, (b) abortion prevents some people from going to hell, and (c) abortion is wrong. They also assert, or are committed to, the following: (d) it is permissible to use defensive violence to prevent people from killing innocents, (e) doctors who perform abortions kill innocents, and (f) it is wrong to use defensive violence against doctors who perform abortions. Stephen Kershnar argues that these and other principles are inconsistent. Along the way, he explores the ways in which theories of hell, right forfeiture, and good consequences relate to each other and the above inconsistencies.

Download or read book Rational Commitment and Social Justice written by Jules L. Coleman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-11-13 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays concerned with fundamental issues of rational commitment and social justice to which Kavka devoted his work as a philosopher.

Download or read book Disability with Dignity written by Linda Barclay and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-24 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophical interest in disability is rapidly expanding. Philosophers are beginning to grasp the complexity of disability—as a category, with respect to well-being and as a marker of identity. However, the philosophical literature on justice and human rights has often been limited in scope and somewhat abstract. Not enough sustained attention has been paid to the concrete claims made by people with disabilities, concerning their human rights, their legal entitlements and their access to important goods, services and resources. This book discusses how effectively philosophical approaches to distributive justice and human rights can support these concrete claims. It argues that these approaches often fail to lend clear support to common disability demands, revealing both the limitations of existing philosophical theories and the inflated nature of some of these demands. Moving beyond entitlements, the author also develops a unique conception of dignity, which she argues illuminates the specific indignities experienced by people with disabilities in the allocation of goods, in the common experience of discrimination and in a wide range of interpersonal interactions. Disability with Dignity offers an accessible and extended philosophical discussion of disability, justice and human rights. It provides a comprehensive assessment of the benefits and pitfalls of theories of human rights and justice for advancing justice for the disabled. It brings the moral importance of dignity to the centre, arguing that justice must be pursued in a way that preserves and promotes the dignity of people with disabilities.

Download or read book Philosophy and Public Policy written by Andrew I. Cohen and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public policy debates often turn on how to get things done once we know our policy objectives. But how do we make appropriate progress when people disagree about what those objectives might be? In this volume, a team of world-renowned scholars introduce and explore the power of philosophy as a tool for understanding public policy controversies. Each chapter uses the tools and concepts of philosophy to frame an assessment of what is at stake in an enduring and recent policy debate. Organised thematically, the volume addresses issues such as disability policies, parenting, immigration, political apologies, criminal punishment, data gathering, and more. Drawing on the resources of ethical theory, social philosophy, and political theory in a highly accessible way, the book is ideal for students and scholars in both philosophy and public policy.