Hailed by philosopher Sidney Hook as "a landmark in the history of American philosophy," the International Philosophy Year in 1967-68 brought seventy of the Western world's most distinguished philosophers to the State University College at Brockport for a series of fourteen conferences devoted to different areas of philosophic inquiry. Contemporary Philosophic Thought, which records the original papers of these conferences in four volumes, stands not only as a major contribution to philosophy, but also as a wide survey of the range of conceptual problems that philosophers are working to solve. Vol. 1, Language, Belief, and Metaphysics, is addressed to problems of logic and language. Contributors discuss the nature of belief and present theories on the concept of the world and on identity through time. Vol. 2, Mind, Science, and History, focuses on the mind and related issues. Scientists and historians join philosophers in considering problems that bear upon their disciplines. Vol. 3, Perspectives in Education, Religion, and the Arts, discusses philosophy as related to cultural change, the changing aims of education, and religion. The philosophy of art is explored from varying viewpoints of genre, style, poetics, aesthetics, rhetoric, and communication. Vol. 4, Ethics and Social Justice, takes up moral and legal issues with essays on human rights and on philosophy as applied to practice.

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Criminal Litigation offers a comprehensive and practical guide to the subject. Using realistic case studies and online resources, students are encouraged to focus on putting their understanding into a practical context. Diagrams, self-test questions, and summaries of key points ensure the text is easy to use.

Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. Brings together fresh debates on the most controversial issues in moral theory Questions include: Are moral requirements derived from reason? How demanding is morality? Are virtues the proper starting point for moral theorizing? Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in contemporary moral theory, while also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers.

This book is an original critique of contemporary liberal theories of justice, focusing on the problem of how to relate the personal point of view of the individual to the impartial perspective of justice. Margaret Moore's examination of prominent contemporary arguments for liberal justice reveals that individualist theories are subject to two serious difficulties: the motivation problem and the integrity problem. Individualists cannot explain why the individual should be motivated to act in accordance with the dictates of liberal justice, and–related to this–offer radically incoherent accounts of the person. Revisionist liberal attempts to ground liberalism in contextual and perfectionist terms offer more defensible foundations, but Dr Moore argues that such theories do not support liberal political principles. She concludes by sketching a historical and concrete approach to political and ethical theorizing which reformulates the relation between self-interest and morality, and is not subject to the problems that beset liberal individualist theories of justice. Her book advances the debate between communitarians and liberals about the kind of moral foundation which a liberal society requires.

What is the ethical basis of democracy? And what reasons do we have to go along with democratic decisions even when we disagree with them? And when do we have reason to say that we may justly ignore democratic decisions? These questions must be answered if we are to have answers to some of the most important questions facing our global community, which include whether there is a human right to democracy and whether we must attempt to spread democracy throughout the globe. This book provides a philosophical account of the moral foundations of democracy and of liberalism. It shows how democracy and basic liberal rights are grounded in the principle of public equality, which tells us that in the establishment of law and policy we must treat persons as equals in ways they can see are treating them as equals. The principle of public equality is shown to be the fundamental principle of social justice. This account enables us to understand the nature and roles of adversarial politics and public deliberation in political life. It gives an account of the grounds of the authority of democracy. It also shows when the authority of democracy runs out. The author shows how the violations of democratic and liberal rights are beyond the legitimate authority of democracy, how the creation of persistent minorities in a democratic society, and the failure to ensure a basic minimum for all persons weaken the legitimate authority of democracy.

The Routledge Companion to Ethics is an outstanding survey of the whole field of ethics by a distinguished international team of contributors. Over 60 chapters are divided into six clear sections: the history of ethics meta-ethics perspectives from outside ethics ethical perspectives morality debates in ethics. The Companion opens with a comprehensive historical overview of ethics, including chapters on Plato, Aristotle, Hume, and Kant, and ethical thinking in China, India and the Arabic tradition. The second part covers the domain of meta-ethics. The third part covers important challenges to ethics from the fields of anthropology, psychology, sociobiology and economics. The fourth and fifth sections cover competing theories of ethics and the nature of morality respectively, with entries on consequentialism, Kantian morality, virtue ethics, relativism, evil, and responsibility amongst many others. A comprehensive final section includes the most important topics and controversies in applied ethics, such as rights, justice and distribution, the end of life, the environment, poverty, war and terrorism. The Routledge Companion to Ethics is a superb resource for anyone interested in the subject, whether in philosophy or related disciplines such as politics, education, or law. Fully indexed and cross-referenced, with helpful further reading sections at the end of each chapter, it is ideal for those coming to the field of ethics for the first time as well as readers already familiar with the subject.

What is it to do justice to the absent victims of past injustice, given the distance that separates us from them? Grounded in political theory and guided by the literature on historical justice, W. James Booth restores the dead to their central place at the heart of our understanding of why and how to deal with past injustice. Testimonies and accounts from the race war in the United States, the Holocaust, post-apartheid South Africa, Argentina’s Dirty War and the conflict in Northern Ireland help advance and defend Booth’s claim that caring for the dead is a central part of addressing past injustice. Memory, Historic Injustice, and Responsibility is an insightful and original book on the relationship of past and present in thinking about what it means to do justice. A valuable addition to the currently available literature on historical justice, the volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, philosophy, history, and law.