Ethics and moral philosophy Books

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Book SynopsisIt has traditionally been accepted that one cannot derive how the world ought to be from the way the world is. The discipline of bioethics endeavors to respond to ethical issues as they arise in the world. For these issues to be analyzed, they must first be described. Redescribing Bioethics: How the Field Constructs Its Argument argues the descriptions bioethicists provide of the moral problems anticipate the proposed solution to these problems. To understand the rhetorical power of bioethics arguments, we need to reverse the structure of the argument, seeing the anticipated solution as driving the presentation of the problem. Arguing the story of bioethics is as much one of powerful redescriptions as of proposed solutions, Tod S. Chambers examines seven rhetorical strategies in how bioethics texts have steered readers toward a particular moral vision of the world: retrodiction, anagnorisis, imbalance, dissociation, metaphor, sources, and hypertextuality. Through these techniques, bioethicists construct a world in which their particular moral theory thrives, and alternative theories will struggle.

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Book SynopsisJustin Simpson, PhD, is Lecturer of Philosophy at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA.

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Book SynopsisJennifer M.S. Ang is associate professor of philosophy at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

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Book SynopsisGlen Koehn is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Huron University College in London, Ontario.

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Book SynopsisGiven the ubiquity of violence in our world, the ever present call to renounce violence has the understandable tendency to ring hollow to many of us. There is no shortage of evidence showing that we really don't oppose violence as much as we claim to. By conceptually analyzing the terms violence and nonviolence, as well as by offering palpable readings of Gandhi's thought and discussing how we can better identify with others, Violence, Nonviolence, and Moral Worth offers insight into how we can begin reducing the gap between our professed reverence for nonviolence and our everyday practices. Sanjay Lal argues that neither our inability to perfectly uphold nonviolent practice nor the reality that moral worth is often exhibited through acts of violence should be an obstacle to affirming the value of a more comprehensive ethic of nonviolence. Peace theorists, activists, and anyone interested in a less violence-filled existence will find much to take away from this work.

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Book SynopsisOne of the secrets within the legal profession is that the stories behind the cases matter more than the legal doctrines involved. A full understanding of legal disputes requires knowing about the cultural and historical context in which the cases arise. In Backstories in the Law: Tales of Victors, Villains and Victims, distinguished law professor Alan Weinberger examine some of the most extraordinary cases of the past century with a focus not so much on the winning and losing, but rather on the backstories behind the disputes. The chapters provide insights and background into the cases, and explain why the decisions continue to resonate today. Most of all, these chapters remind us of the transcendent importance of good stories: in disputes involving fundamental human emotions and desires, there is usually a victor, villain and victim. Ultimately it is the reader who gets to decide whether justice was done or denied.

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Book SynopsisPorphyry's On Abstinence from Killing Animals is one of the most interesting books from Greek antiquity for both philosophers and historians. In it, Porphyry relates the arguments for eating or sacrificing animals and then goes on to argue that an understanding of humans and gods shows such sacrifice to be inappropriate, that an understanding of animals shows it to be unjust, and that a knowledge of non-Greeks shows it to be unnecessary. There are no Neoplatonist commentaries on Aristotle's Ethics from the period AD 250-600. Thus, although this work is not a commentary on Aristotle, it fills a gap in this series by going to the heart of ethical debates among Neoplatonists around AD 300, and revealing one ascetic Neoplatonist's view of the ideal way of life. It also records rival positions taken on the treatment of animals by Greek philosophers over the previous six hundred years.Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Textual Emendations TRANSLATION Notes Bibliography English-Greek Glossary Greek-English Index Index of Passages Cited Subject Index

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