Contractualism and the Foundations of Morality PDF Download

Author: Nicholas Southwood
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191009997
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
Contractualism has a venerable history and considerable appeal. Yet as an account of the foundations or ultimate grounds of morality it has been thought by many philosophers to be subject to fatal objections. In this book Nicholas Southwood argues otherwise. Beginning by detailing and diagnosing the shortcomings of the existing "Hobbesian" and "Kantian" models of contractualism, he then proposes a novel "deliberative" model, based on an interpersonal, deliberative conception of practical reason. He argues that the deliberative model of contractualism represents an attractive alternative to its more familiar rivals and that it has the resources to offer a more compelling account of morality's foundations, one that does justice to the twin demands of moral accuracy and explanatory adequacy.

Author: Amartya Sen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521287715
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Utilitarianism considered both as a theory of personal morality and a theory of public choice.

Author: Matt Matravers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135755949
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
This collection brings together essays by distinguished political philosophers which reflect on the detailed arguments of What We Owe to Each Other, and comment critically both on Scanlon's contractualism and his revised understandings of motivation and morality. The essays illustrate the uses of Scanlon's contractualism by applying it to moral and political problems and in so doing they provide an assessment of the ability of Scanlon's contractualism by applying it to other forms of ethical theory. The resulting volume makes an important and original contribution to the literature on Scanlon, on contractualism and on contemporary political philosophy.

Author: Marcus Arvan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137541814
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Rightness as Fairness provides a uniquely fruitful method of 'principled fair negotiation' for resolving applied moral and political issues that requires merging principled debate with real-world negotiation.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309051320
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
Breakthroughs in biomedicine often lead to new life-giving treatments but may also raise troubling, even life-and-death, quandaries. Society's Choices discusses ways for people to handle today's bioethics issues in the context of America's unique history and cultureâ€"and from the perspectives of various interest groups. The book explores how Americans have grappled with specific aspects of bioethics through commission deliberations, programs by organizations, and other mechanisms and identifies criteria for evaluating the outcomes of these efforts. The committee offers recommendations on the role of government and professional societies, the function of commissions and institutional review boards, and bioethics in health professional education and research. The volume includes a series of 12 superb background papers on public moral discourse, mechanisms for handling social and ethical dilemmas, and other specific areas of controversy by well-known experts Ronald Bayer, Martin Benjamin, Dan W. Brock, Baruch A. Brody, H. Alta Charo, Lawrence Gostin, Bradford H. Gray, Kathi E. Hanna, Elizabeth Heitman, Thomas Nagel, Steven Shapin, and Charles M. Swezey.

Author: K. Bayertz
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401108609
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
The demand for consensus arises due to its absence. For each opinion held there will be another to counter it, and for each approach to problem solving an alternative will be suggested. Focusing on the bioethical problems surrounding new technical interventions in human reproduction, 15 authors try to examine the meaning, importance and feasibility of consensus. The very different perspectives from the philosophers, physicians, lawyers, theologians, politicians and sociologists contributing to this topic reflect on the difficulties and complexity of moral decision making, offer views on the problem of why decision making does not take place more harmoniously and asks if there can be any hope of a solution in a world where the discipline of contemporary ethics is characterised by a vast diversity - or chaos - of heterogenous theories and concurring approaches. This book is intended for philosophers, physicians, ethicists and everyone involved in moral decision making, to shape his or her understanding of this process and to help him or her to reflect on the concept of consensus.

Author: Nicolas Baumard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190210230
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
In order to describe the logic of morality, "contractualist" philosophers have studied how individuals behave when they choose to follow their moral intuitions. These individuals, contractualists note, often act as if they have bargained and thus reached an agreement with others about how to distribute the benefits and burdens of mutual cooperation. Using this observation, such philosophers argue that the purpose of morality is to maximize the benefits of human interaction. The resulting "contract" analogy is both insightful and puzzling. On one hand, it captures the pattern of moral intuitions, thus answering questions about human cooperation: why do humans cooperate? Why should the distribution of benefits be proportionate to each person's contribution? Why should the punishment be proportionate to the crime? Why should the rights be proportionate to the duties? On the other hand, the analogy provides a mere as-if explanation for human cooperation, saying that cooperation is "as if" people have passed a contract-but since they didn't, why should it be so? To evolutionary thinkers, the puzzle of the missing contract is immediately reminiscent of the puzzle of the missing "designer" of life-forms, a puzzle that Darwin's theory of natural selection essentially resolved. Evolutionary and contractualist theory originally intersected at the work of philosophers John Rawls and David Gauthier, who argued that moral judgments are based on a sense of fairness that has been naturally selected. In this book, Nicolas Baumard further explores the theory that morality was originally an adaptation to the biological market of cooperation, an arena in which individuals competed to be selected for cooperative interactions. In this environment, Baumard suggests, the best strategy was to treat others with impartiality and to share the costs and benefits of cooperation in a fair way, so that those who offered less than others were left out of cooperation while those who offered more were exploited by their partners. It is with this evolutionary approach that Baumard ultimately accounts for the specific structure of human morality.

Author: Jussi Suikkanen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108587119
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 77

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Book Description
This Element begins by describing T.M. Scanlon's contractualism according to which an action is right when it is authorised by the moral principles no one could reasonably reject. This view has argued to have implausible consequences with regards to how different-sized groups, non-human animals, and cognitively limited human beings should be treated. It has also been accused of being theoretically redundant and unable to vindicate the so-called deontic distinctions. I then distinguish between the general contractualist framework and Scanlon's version of contractualism. I explain how the general framework enables us to formulate many other versions of contractualism some of which can already be found in the literature. Understanding contractualism in this new way enables us both to understand the structural similarities and differences between different versions of contractualism and also to see the different objections to contractualism as internal debates about which version of contractualism is correct.

Author: Jesús Conill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351160982
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
This study provides a representation of the broad spectrum of theoretical work on topics related to business ethics, with a particular focus on corporate citizenship. It considers relations of business and society alongside social responsibility and moves on to examine the historical and systemic foundations of business ethics, focusing on the concepts of social and ethical responsibilities. The contributors explore established theories and concepts and their impact on moral behaviour. Together, the contributions offer varied philosophical theories in approaches to business ethics. The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers with an interest in the theoretical development of business ethics.

Author: Stephen Darwell
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631231097
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Contractualism/Contractarianism collects, for the first time, both major classical sources and central contemporary discussions of these important approaches to philosophical ethics. Edited and introduced by Stephen Darwall, these readings are essential for anyone interested in normative ethics. With a helpful introduction by Stephen Darwall, examines key topics in the contractarian and contractualist moral theory. Includes six contemporary essays which respond to the classic sources. Includes an insightful discussion of contractualism by Gary Watson. Includes classic excerpts by key figures such as Hobbes, Rousseau, and Kant, and recent reactions to this work by philosophers, including David Gauthier, Gilbert Harman, John Rawls, and T. M. Scanlon.