Description
Book SynopsisThis book is about how the systematic application of some basic principles of applied ethics yields some surprising and very unpopular results. In particular, Kershnar investigate three areas: sex, discrimination, and violence. These controversial conclusions will no doubt spur animated and thoughtful discussion amongst readers.
Trade ReviewFascinating philosophy often seeks to generate strong conclusions from weak premises. Stephen Kershnar's Sex, Discrimination, and Violence is in this vein. Beginning with a relatively uncontroversial moral core of self-ownership rights and a widely accepted objective account of the human good, Kershnar claims that certain counterintuitive conclusions about permissible behavior cannot be avoided. Kershnar's book requires us to consider whether our rejection of practices such as enjoying rape-pornography and torturing wrongdoers is based merely on squeamishness, or can be given a principled foundation. Few will want to accept Kershnar's conclusions, but many will enjoy learning as they try to figure out where he has gone wrong. -- Thaddeus Metz, University of Johannesburg
I seldom agree with Kershnar, but I have long found his arguments interesting—both in the sense that they catch my interest and in the sense that they provoke me to think more carefully about questions I had assumed were closed. This book is no exception—except that (disconcerting as it is) I found his argument for the moral permissibility of some child-adult sex convincing. -- Michael Davis, Professor of Philosophy, Illinois Institute of Technology
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Part 3 Part One: Sex Chapter 4 1. The Moral Status of Harmless Adult-Child Sex Chapter 5 2. Is Violation Pornography Bad for Your Soul? Part 6 Part Two: Discrimination Chapter 7 3. Intrinsic Moral Value and Racial Differences Chapter 8 4. For Discrimination Against Women Chapter 9 5. Why Equal Opportunity is not a Valuable Goal Chapter 10 6. Immigrants and Welfare Part 11 Part Three: Violence Chapter 12 7. For Interrogational Torture Chapter 13 8. The Moral Argument for a Policy of Assassination Chapter 14 Index
