Do All Persons Have Equal Moral Worth?

Do All Persons Have Equal Moral Worth?
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 239
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780198719502
ISBN-13 : 0198719507
Rating : 4/5 (02 Downloads)

Synopsis Do All Persons Have Equal Moral Worth? by : Uwe Steinhoff

In present-day political and moral philosophy the idea that all persons are in some way moral equals is an almost universal premise, with its defenders often claiming that philosophical positions that reject the principle of equal respect and concern do not deserve to be taken seriously. This has led to relatively few attempts to clarify, or indeed justify, 'basic equality' and the principle of equal respect and concern. Such clarification and justification, however, would be direly needed. After all, the ideas, for instance, that Adolf Hitler and Nelson Mandela have equal moral worth, or that a rape victim owes equal respect and concern to both her rapist and to her own caring brother, seem to be utterly implausible. Thus, if someone insists on the truth of such ideas, he or she owes his or her audience an explanation. The authors in this volume-which breaks new ground by engaging egalitarians and anti-egalitarians in a genuine dialogue-attempt to shed light into the dark. They try to clarify the concepts of "basic equality", "equal moral worth","equal respect and concern", "dignity," etc; and they try to (partially) justify-or to refute-the resulting clarified doctrines. The volume thus demonstrates that the claim that all persons have equal moral worth, are owed equal concern and respect, or have the same rights is anything but obvious. This finding has not only significant philosophical but also political implications.

The Second-Person Standpoint

The Second-Person Standpoint
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 363
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674034624
ISBN-13 : 0674034627
Rating : 4/5 (24 Downloads)

Synopsis The Second-Person Standpoint by : Stephen Darwall

Why should we avoid doing moral wrong? The inability of philosophy to answer this question in a compelling manner—along with the moral skepticism and ethical confusion that ensue—result, Stephen Darwall argues, from our failure to appreciate the essentially interpersonal character of moral obligation. After showing how attempts to vindicate morality have tended to change the subject—falling back on non-moral values or practical, first-person considerations—Darwall elaborates the interpersonal nature of moral obligations: their inherent link to our responsibilities to one another as members of the moral community. As Darwall defines it, the concept of moral obligation has an irreducibly second-person aspect; it presupposes our authority to make claims and demands on one another. And so too do many other central notions, including those of rights, the dignity of and respect for persons, and the very concept of person itself. The result is nothing less than a fundamental reorientation of moral theory that enables it at last to account for morality’s supreme authority—an account that Darwall carries from the realm of theory to the practical world of second-person attitudes, emotions, and actions.

Moral Value and Human Diversity

Moral Value and Human Diversity
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 159
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780195374117
ISBN-13 : 0195374118
Rating : 4/5 (17 Downloads)

Synopsis Moral Value and Human Diversity by : Robert Audi

Robert Audi looks at four previous major attempts to codify ethical behaviour: the virtue ethics of Aristotle, the rule-based ethics of Kant; J.S. Mill's utilitarianism; and the movement known as 'common-sense' ethics associated with W.D. Ross.

One Another’s Equals

One Another’s Equals
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 277
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674659766
ISBN-13 : 0674659767
Rating : 4/5 (66 Downloads)

Synopsis One Another’s Equals by : Jeremy Waldron

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. "More Than Merely Equal Consideration"? -- 2. Prescriptivity and Redundancy -- 3. Looking for a Range Property -- 4. Power and Scintillation -- 5. A Religious Basis for Equality? -- 6. The Profoundly Disabled as Our Human Equals -- Index

Encyclopedia of Global Justice

Encyclopedia of Global Justice
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages :
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1784027014
ISBN-13 : 9781784027018
Rating : 4/5 (14 Downloads)

Synopsis Encyclopedia of Global Justice by : Deen K. Chatterjee

The Encyclopedia is an international, interdisciplinary, and collaborative project, spanning all the relevant areas of scholarship related to issues of global justice, and edited and advised by leading scholars from around the world. The wide-ranging entries present the latest ideas on this complex subject by authors who are at the cutting edge of inquiry.

Singer and His Critics

Singer and His Critics
Author :
Publisher : Wiley-Blackwell
Total Pages : 368
Release :
ISBN-10 : 1557869081
ISBN-13 : 9781557869081
Rating : 4/5 (81 Downloads)

Synopsis Singer and His Critics by : Dale Jamieson

This is the first book devoted to the work of Peter Singer, one of the leaders of the practical ethics movement, and one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century.

Moral Status

Moral Status
Author :
Publisher : Clarendon Press
Total Pages : 278
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191588150
ISBN-13 : 0191588156
Rating : 4/5 (50 Downloads)

Synopsis Moral Status by : Mary Anne Warren

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

Social Equality

Social Equality
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 257
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199331109
ISBN-13 : 0199331103
Rating : 4/5 (09 Downloads)

Synopsis Social Equality by : Carina Fourie

Is equality valuable? This question dominates many discussions of social justice, which tend to center on whether certain forms of distributive equality are valuable, such as the equal distribution of primary social goods. But these discussions often neglect what is known as social or relational equality. Social equality suggests that equality is foremost about relationships and interactions between people, rather than being primarily about distribution. A number of philosophers have written about the significance of social equality, and it has also played an important role in real-life egalitarian movements, such as feminism and civil rights movements. However, as it has been relatively neglected in comparison to the debates about distributive equality, it requires much more theoretical attention. This volume brings together a collection of ten original essays which present new analyses of social and relational equality in philosophy and political theory. The essays analyze the nature of social equality, as well as its relationship to justice and politics.

A Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 624
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674042605
ISBN-13 : 0674042603
Rating : 4/5 (05 Downloads)

Synopsis A Theory of Justice by : John RAWLS

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition. This reissue makes the first edition once again available for scholars and serious students of Rawls's work.

Cosmopolitan War

Cosmopolitan War
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages :
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191662713
ISBN-13 : 0191662712
Rating : 4/5 (13 Downloads)

Synopsis Cosmopolitan War by : Cécile Fabre

War is about individuals maiming and killing each other, and yet, it seems that it is also irreducibly collective, as it is fought by groups of people and more often than not for the sake of communal values such as territorial integrity and national self-determination. Cécile Fabre articulates and defends an ethical account of war in which the individual, as a moral and rational agent, is the fundamental focus for concern and respect—both as a combatant whose acts of killing need justifying and as a non-combatant whose suffering also needs justifying. She takes as her starting point a political morality to which the individual, rather than the nation-state, is central, namely cosmopolitanism. According to cosmopolitanism, individuals all matter equally, irrespective of their membership in this or that political community. Traditional war ethics already accepts this principle, since it holds that unarmed civilians are illegitimate targets even though they belong to the enemy community. However, although the traditional account of whom we may kill in wars is broadly faithful to that principle, the traditional account of why we may kill and of who may kill is not. Cosmopolitan theorists, for their part, do not address the ethical issues raised by war in any depth. Fabre's Cosmopolitan War seeks to fill this gap, and defends its account of just and unjust wars by addressing the ethics of different kinds of war: wars of national defence, wars over scarce resources, civil wars, humanitarian intervention, wars involving private military forces, and asymmetrical wars.