Download or read book On Moral Personhood written by Richard Eldridge and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989-12-15 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this remarkable blend of sophisticated philosophical analysis and close reading of literary texts, Richard Eldridge presents a convincing argument that literature is the most important and richest source of insights in favor of a historicized Kantian moral philosophy. He effectively demonstrates that only through the interpretation of narratives can we test our capacities as persons for acknowledging the moral laws as a formula of value and for acting according to it. Eldridge presents an extensive new interpretation of Kantian ethics that is deeply informed by Kant's aesthetics. He defends a revised version of Kantian universalism and a Kantian conception of the content of morality. Eldridge then turns to literature armed not with any a priori theory but with an interpretive stance inspired by Hegel's phenomenology of self-understanding, more or less naturalized, and by Wittgenstein's work on self-understanding as ongoing narrative-interpretive activity, a stance that yields Kantian results about the universal demands our nature places on itself. Eldridge goes on to present readings of novels by Conrad and Austen and poetry by Wordsworth and Coleridge. In each text protagonists are seen to be struggling with moral conflicts and for self-understanding as moral persons. The route toward partial resolution of their conflicts is seen to involve multiple and ongoing activities of reading and interpreting. The result of this kind of interpretation is that such literature—literature that portrays protagonists as themselves readers and interpreters of human capacities for morality—is a primary source for the development of morally significant self-understanding. We see in the careers of these protagonists that there can be genuine and fruitful moral deliberation and valuable action, while also seeing how situated and partial any understanding and achievement of value must remain. On Moral Personhood at once delineates the moral nature of persons; shows various conditions of the ongoing, contextualized, partial acknowledgment of that nature and of the exercise of the capacities that define it; and enacts an important way of reading literature in relation to moral problems. Eldridge's work will be important reading for moral philosophers (especially those concerned with Kant, Hegel, and issues dividing moral particularists from moral universalists), literary theorists (especially those concerned with the value of literature and its relation to philosophy and to moral problems), and readers and critics of Conrad, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Austen.
Download or read book An African Philosophy of Personhood Morality and Politics written by Motsamai Molefe and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the salient ethical idea of personhood in African philosophy. It is a philosophical exposition that pursues the ethical and political consequences of the normative idea of personhood as a robust or even foundational ethical category. Personhood refers to the moral achievements of the moral agent usually captured in terms of a virtuous character, which have consequences for both morality and politics. The aim is not to argue for the plausibility of the ethical and political consequences of the idea of personhood. Rather, the book showcases some of the moral-political content and consequences of the account it presents.
Download or read book An African Ethics of Personhood and Bioethics written by Motsamai Molefe and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-05-30 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book articulates an African conception of dignity in light of the salient axiological category of personhood in African cultures. The idea of personhood embodies a moral system for evaluating human lives exuding with virtue or ones that are morally excellent. This book argues that this idea of personhood embodies an under-explored conception of dignity, which accounts for it in terms of our capacity for the virtue of sympathy. It then proceeds to apply this personhood-based conception of dignity to bioethical questions, specifically, those of abortion and euthanasia. Regarding abortion, it concludes that it is impermissible since foetuses possess partial moral status. Regarding euthanasia, it argues that it is permissible for reasons revolving around avoiding the reversing of personhood. It also, though, minimally, touches on the questions regarding the mentally disabled and animals, to which it assigns lower moral status.
Download or read book What Is a Person written by Christian Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-11-30 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The task of understanding human beings, what we ourselves are, our constitution and condition, is a perennial problem in philosophy and related disciplines. Smith argues here that our understanding of human persons is threatened by technological development and capricious academic theories alike, seeking to deny or relativize the personhood of humanity. Smith's book puts a stake in the ground, in defense of a view of the human that is genuinely humanistic in the traditional sense and capable of sustaining with intellectual coherence things like modern human rights and universal benevolence.
Download or read book Personhood Ethics and Animal Cognition written by Gary E. Varner and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-08-23 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book also draws heavily on empirical research on consciousness and cognition in non-human animals as a way of approaching the question of which animals, if any, are "persons," or at least "near-persons".
Download or read book Moral Personhood written by G. E. Scott and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1990-07-05 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a theory of personhood and moral personhood using results from recent work on intentionality in the philosophy of mind. An account of intentional kinds, causation, and explanation is provided to resolve some current issues in moral and legal theory, and to examine questions raised in law and medicine where it is necessary to deal with human individuals at the boundaries of their lives. Topics discussed include abortion, death, euthanasia, personal identity, rights — including the right to privacy and the right to die — servility, and suicide.
Download or read book Moral Personhood written by G. E. Scott and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a theory of personhood and moral personhood using results from recent work on intentionality in the philosophy of mind. An account of intentional kinds, causation, and explanation is provided to resolve some current issues in moral and legal theory, and to examine questions raised in law and medicine where it is necessary to deal with human individuals at the boundaries of their lives. Topics discussed include abortion, death, euthanasia, personal identity, rights -- including the right to privacy and the right to die -- servility, and suicide.
Download or read book African Personhood and Applied Ethics written by Molefe, Motsamai and published by NISC (Pty) Ltd. This book was released on 2020-02-16 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently, the salient idea of personhood in the tradition of African philosophy has been objected to on various grounds. Two such objections stand out – the book deals with a lot more. The first criticism is that the idea of personhood is patriarchal insofar as it elevates the status of men and marginalises women in society. The second criticism observes that the idea of personhood is characterised by speciesism. The essence of these concerns is that personhood fails to embody a robust moral-political view. African Personhood and Applied Ethics offers a philosophical explication of the ethics of personhood to give reasons why we should take it seriously as an African moral perspective that can contribute to global moral-political issues. The book points to the two facets that constitute the ethics of personhood – an account of (1) moral perfection and (2) dignity. It then draws on the under-explored view of dignity qua the capacity for sympathy inherent in the moral idea of personhood to offer a unified account of selected themes in applied ethics, specifically women, animal and development.
Download or read book Moral Status written by Mary Anne Warren and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1997-11-13 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Anne Warren explores a theoretical question which lies at the heart of practical ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? In other words, what are the criteria for being an entity towards which people have moral obligations? Some philosophers maintain that there is one intrinsic property—for instance, life, sentience, humanity, or moral agency. Others believe that relational properties, such as belonging to a human community, are more important. In Part I of the book, Warren argues that no single property can serve as the sole criterion for moral status; instead, life, sentience, moral agency, and social and biotic relationships are all relevant, each in a different way. She presents seven basic principles, each focusing on a property that can, in combination with others, legitimately affect an agent's moral obligations towards entities of a given type. In Part II, these principles are applied in an examination of three controversial ethical issues: voluntary euthanasia, abortion
Download or read book Defining Personhood written by Sarah Bishop Merrill and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many debates in biomedical ethics today involve inconsistencies in defining the key term, person. Both sides of the abortion debate, for instance, beg the question about what constitutes personhood. This book explores the arguments concerning definitions of personhood in the history of modern philosophy, and then constructs a superior model, defined in terms of distinctive features (a theoretical concept borrowed from linguistics). This model is shown to have distinct advantages over the necessary and sufficient condition models of personhood launched by essentialists. Philosophers historically have been correct about what some of the pivotal distinctive features of personhood are, e.q., rationality, communications and self-consciousness, but they have been wrong about the methods of recognizing and asserting personhood, and about the relative importance of feelings. In clinical care, complaints often surface that care is not personal. This book aims to improve care through providing a method of attending to patients as people. Charts in the Appendices show that where physicians attended to personal features important to their patients, sometimes the patients rated the care even higher than the physician did. The book will be useful to health-care providers whose goals include improving quality of care, listening to patients, and preventing malpractice.
Download or read book Moral Believing Animals written by Christian Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Moral, Believing Animals, Christian Smith advances a creative theory of human persons and culture that offers innovative, challenging answers to these and other fundamental questions in sociological, cultural, and religious theory.
Download or read book Arguments about Abortion written by Kate Greasley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the legal status of abortion and the human fetus? In an extended analysis of mainstream arguments involving abortion and the status of 'personhood' that is often applied to the fetus, this book provides novel answers to some of the core 'pro-life' arguments in favour of recognizing fetal personhood and moral rights.
Download or read book Transformations in Personhood and Culture After Theory written by Christie McDonald and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2010-11-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Moral Status of Persons written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-08 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The advances in molecular biology and genetics, medicine and neurosciences, in ethology and environmental studies have put the concept of the person firmly on the philosophical agenda. Whereas earlier times seemed to have a clear understanding about the moral implications of personhood and its boundaries, today there is little consensus on such matters. Whether a patient in the last stages of Alzheimer's disease is still a person, or whether a human embryo is already a person are highly contentious issues. This book tackles the issue of personhood and its moral implications head-on. The thirteen essays are representative of the major strands in the current bioethical debate and offer new insights into humanity's moral standing, its foundations, and its implications for social interaction. While most of the essays approach the issue by drawing on the rich intellectual tradition of the West, others offer a cross-cultural perspective and make available for ethical consideration the philosophical resources and the wisdom of the East. The contributors to this book are highly recognized philosophers, ethicists, theologians, and professionals in health care and medicine from East Asia (China, Japan), Europe, and North America. The first part of the book probes the foundations of personhood. Examining critically the main theories on personhood in contemporary philosophy, the authors offer alternatives that better respond to contemporary challenges and their implications for bioethics. The focus of the second part is firmly on the Confucian relational concept of the person and on the social constitution of personhood in traditional Japanese culture. While the essays challenge the individualistic features of personhood in the Western tradition, they lay the foundations for a richer concept that holds great promise for the resolution of moral dilemmas in modern medicine and health care. The third part of the book enters into a dialogue with the Christian tradition and draws on its spiritual heritage in the search for answers to the contemporary challenges to human dignity and value. Its focus is on the Catholic social thought and Lutheran theology. The fourth part addresses the moral status of persons in view of specific issues such as the effects of brain injury, gene therapy, and human cloning on personhood. It extends the scope of research beyond human beings and inquires also into the moral status of animals.
Download or read book Holding and Letting Go written by Hilde Lindemann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the social practice of holding each other in our identities, beginning with pregnancy and on through the life span. Lindemann argues that our identities give us our sense of how to act and how to treat others, and that the ways in which we we hold each other in them is of crucial moral importance.
Download or read book The Moral and Metaphysical Aspects of Personhood written by Michael Francis Goodman and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Moral Responsibility and Persons written by Eugene Schlossberger and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-02 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging traditional philosophical views of moral responsibility, Eugene Schlossberger argues that we are responsible not so much for what we do as for who we are. He explores what it means to be a person, concluding that personhood is the sum of beliefs and values—which are by no means entirely within our control. Consequently, the voluntariness of our acts—or even whether we act at all—is irrelevant to the moral evaluation of us as persons. Schlossberger contends that we are to be judged morally on the basis of what we are, our "world-view," rather than what we do. In Moral Responsibility and Persons Schlossberger disputes various received philosophical positions. His challenging and entertaining account also examines psychology and its view of the nature of personhood, as well as insanity and the "personality" of animals, children, and computers. He explores the validity of emotions we may feel in response to others—especially gratitude and resentment. And finally, Schlossberger tackles the inevitable implications of his position in the area of crime and punishment.
