This challenging and provocative book argues against much contemporary orthodoxy in philosophy and the social sciences by showing why objectivity in the domain of ethics is really no different from the objectivity of scientific knowledge. Many philosophers and social scientists have challenged the idea that we act for objectively authoritative reasons. Jean Hampton takes up the challenge by undermining two central assumptions of this contemporary orthodoxy: that one can understand instrumental reasons without appeal to objective authority, and that the adoption of the scientific world view requires no such appeal. In the course of the book Jean Hampton examines moral realism, the general nature of reason and norms, internalism and externalism, instrumental reasoning, and the expected utility model of practical reasoning. The book is sure to prove to be a seminal work in the theory of rationality that will be read by a broad swathe of philosophers and social scientists.

In this book Joseph Raz develops his views on some of the central questions in practical philosophy: legal, political, and moral. The book provides an overview of Raz's work on jurisprudence and the nature of law in the context of broader questions in the philosophy of practical reason. The book opens with a discussion of methodological issues, focusing on understanding the nature of jurisprudence. It asks how the nature of law can be explained, and how the success of a legal theory can be established. The book then addresses central questions on the nature of law, its relation to morality, the nature and justification of authority, and the nature of legal reasoning. It explains how legitimate law, while being a branch of applied morality, is also a relatively autonomous system, which has the potential to bridge moral differences among its subjects. Raz offers responses to some critical reactions to his theory of authority, adumbrating, and modifying the theory to meet some of them. The final part of the book brings together for the first time Raz's work on the nature of interpretation in law and the humanities. It includes a new essay explaining interpretive pluralism and the possibility of interpretive innovation. Taken together, the essays in the volume offer a valuable introduction for students coming for the first time to Raz's work in the philosophy of law, and an original contribution to many of the current debates in practical philosophy.

In Apostles of Reason, Molly Worthen offers a sweeping history of modern American evangelicalism, arguing that the faith has been shaped not by shared beliefs but by battles over the relationship between faith and reason.

Dale Dorsey considers one of the most fundamental questions in philosophical ethics: to what extent do the demands of morality have normative authority over us and our lives? Must we conform to moral requirements? Most who have addressed this question have treated the normative significance of morality as simply a fact to be explained. But Dorsey argues that this traditional assumption is misguided. According to Dorsey, not only are we not required to conform to moral demands, conforming to morality's demands will not always even be normatively permissible---moral behavior can be (quite literally) wrong. This view is significant not only for understanding the content and force of the moral point of view, but also for understanding the basic elements of how one ought to live.

Gives an extended argument for epistemic authority from the implications of reflective self-consciousness. Epistemic authority is compatible with autonomy, but epistemic self-reliance is incoherent. The book argues that epistemic and emotional self-trust are rational and inescapable, that consistent self-trust commits us to trust in others, and that among those we are committed to trusting are some whom we ought to treat as epistemic authorities, modelled on the well-known principles of authority of Joseph Raz. Some of these authorities can be in the moral and religious domains. The book investigates the way the problem of disagreement between communities or between the self and others is a conflict within self-trust, and argue against communal self-reliance on the same grounds as the book uses in arguing against individual self-reliance. The book explains how any change in belief is justified--by the conscientious judgment that the change will survive future conscientious self-reflection. The book concludes with an account of autonomy. -- Información de la editorial.

The Fate of Reason is the first general history devoted to the period between Kant and Fichte, one of the most revolutionary and fertile in modern philosophy. The philosophers of this time broke with the two central tenets of the modem Cartesian tradition: the authority of reason and the primacy of epistemology. They also witnessed the decline of the Aufkldrung, the completion of Kant's philosophy, and the beginnings of post-Kantian idealism. Thanks to Beiser we can newly appreciate the influence of Kant's critics on the development of his philosophy. Beiser brings the controversies, and the personalities who engaged in them, to life and tells a story that has uncanny parallels with the debates of the present.

Explores the social ramifications of Kant's concept of radical evil.

Stephen Darwall presents a series of essays that explore the view that morality is second-personal, entailing mutual accountability and the authority to address demands. He illustrates the power of the second-personal framework to illuminate a wide variety of issues in moral, political, and legal philosophy.

In the first book wholly concerned with divine authority, Mark C. Murphy explores the extent of God's rule over created rational beings. The author challenges the view—widely supported by theists and nontheists alike—that if God exists, then humans must be bound by an obligation of obedience to this being. He demonstrates that this view, the "authority thesis," cannot be sustained by any of the arguments routinely advanced on its behalf, including those drawn from perfect being theology, metaethical theory, normative principles, and even Scripture and tradition. After exposing the inadequacies of the various arguments for the authority thesis, he develops his own solution to the problem of whether, and to what extent, God is authoritative. For Murphy, divine authority is a contingent matter: while created rational beings have decisive reason to subject themselves to the divine rule, they are under divine authority only insofar as they have chosen to allow God's decisions to take the place of their own in their practical reasoning. The author formulates and defends his arguments for this view, and notes its implications for understanding the distinctiveness of Christian ethics.

Originally published in 1964, this book examines the influence of reason and authority upon English thought in the eighteenth century. The text relates these two concepts to movements in religious and political thought, beginning with Locke's views on faith and reason before going through various areas and finishing with the beginnings of Romanticism. The age of the Enlightenment is seen as constituted, on the one hand, by an attempt to relate all significant intellectual movements to reason and, on the other, an attempt to devise proper restraints on the authority of reason. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in philosophy, social and political thought, and eighteenth-century English history.