From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities

From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities PDF

Author: Geoffrey M. Hodgson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 323

ISBN-13: 0226922715

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Are humans at their core seekers of their own pleasure or cooperative members of society? Paradoxically, they are both. Pleasure-seeking can take place only within the context of what works within a defined community, and central to any community are the evolved codes and principles guiding appropriate behavior, or morality. The complex interaction of morality and self-interest is at the heart of Geoffrey M. Hodgson’s approach to evolutionary economics, which is designed to bring about a better understanding of human behavior. In From Pleasure Machines to Moral Communities, Hodgson casts a critical eye on neoclassical individualism, its foundations and flaws, and turns to recent insights from research on the evolutionary bases of human behavior. He focuses his attention on the evolution of morality, its meaning, why it came about, and how it influences human attitudes and behavior. This more nuanced understanding sets the stage for a fascinating investigation of its implications on a range of pressing issues drawn from diverse environments, including the business world and crucial policy realms like health care and ecology. This book provides a valuable complement to Hodgson’s earlier work with Thorbjørn Knudsen on evolutionary economics in Darwin’s Conjecture, extending the evolutionary outlook to include moral and policy-related issues.

Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community

Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community PDF

Author: Bernard Yack

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-04-06

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0226944689

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Nationalism is one of modern history’s great surprises. How is it that the nation, a relatively old form of community, has risen to such prominence in an era so strongly identified with the individual? Bernard Yack argues that it is the inadequacy of our understanding of community—and especially the moral psychology that animates it—that has made this question so difficult to answer. Yack develops a broader and more flexible theory of community and shows how to use it in the study of nations and nationalism. What makes nationalism such a powerful and morally problematic force in our lives is the interplay of old feelings of communal loyalty and relatively new beliefs about popular sovereignty. By uncovering this fraught relationship, Yack moves our understanding of nationalism beyond the oft-rehearsed debate between primordialists and modernists, those who exaggerate our loss of individuality and those who underestimate the depth of communal attachments. A brilliant and compelling book, Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community sets out a revisionist conception of nationalism that cannot be ignored.

Moral Communities

Moral Communities PDF

Author: Mark D. Steinberg

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2024-06-12

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 0520378121

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This valuable study offers a rare perspective on the social and political crisis in late Imperial Russia. Mark D. Steinberg focuses on employers, supervisors, and workers in the printing industry as it evolved from a state-dependent handicraft to a capitalist industry. He explores class relations and the values, norms, and perceptions with which they were made meaningful. Using archival and printed sources, Steinberg examines economic changes, workplace relations, professional organizations, unions, strikes, and political activism, as well as shop customs, trade festivals, and everyday life. In rich detail he describes efforts to build a community of masters and men united by shared interests and moral norms. The collapse of this ideal in the face of growing class conflict is also explored, giving a full view of an important moment in Russian history. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.

Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community

Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community PDF

Author: Loren E. Lomasky

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1990-07-26

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 0195362357

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This book provides a complete and convincing account of what rights we do and do not have, who has them, and why. Presenting the foundations of a liberal, individualistic theory of rights, Lomasky explains the place of rights within the overall structure of morality, arguing for the moral importance of individual commitments to and pursuit of "projects." After developing his theory of basic rights, Lomasky demonstrates its implications for a variety of problems and issues, including property rights, the rights of children, and the status of the unborn, defective persons, animals, and even the dead. Arguing for a fundamental reshaping of philosophical ethics, Lomasky develops a credible alternative to currently fashionable views.

The Ethics of Richard Rorty

The Ethics of Richard Rorty PDF

Author: Taylor & Francis Group

Publisher: Routledge Studies in American Philosophy

Published: 2022-05-06

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781032074894

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This book demonstrates that Rorty offers a coherent ethical vision. Its chapters explore his emphasis on the importance of moral imagination, social relations, language, and literature as instrumental for ethical self-transformation as well as for strengthening social hope, which entails work toward a more inclusive and cosmopolitan world.

Foundations for Moral Relativism

Foundations for Moral Relativism PDF

Author: J. David Velleman

Publisher: Open Book Publishers

Published: 2015-11-23

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 1783740329

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In this new edition of Foundations for Moral Relativism a distinguished moral philosopher tames a bugbear of current debate about cultural difference. J. David Velleman shows that different communities can indeed be subject to incompatible moralities, because their local mores are rationally binding. At the same time, he explains why the mores of different communities, even when incompatible, are still variations on the same moral themes. The book thus maps out a universe of many moral worlds without, as Velleman puts it, "moral black holes”. The six self-standing chapters discuss such diverse topics as online avatars and virtual worlds, lying in Russian and truth-telling in Quechua, the pleasure of solitude and the fear of absurdity. Accessibly written, this book presupposes no prior training in philosophy.

Visions of Charity

Visions of Charity PDF

Author: Rebecca Anne Allahyari

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2000-10-01

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780520935327

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In the United States, public talk about charity for the poor is highly moralistic, even in our era of welfare reform. But how do we understand the actual experience of caring for the poor? This study looks at the front lines of volunteer involvement with the poor and homeless to assess what volunteer work means for those who do it. Rebecca Allahyari profiles volunteers at two charities—Loaves & Fishes and The Salvation Army—to show how they think about themselves and their work, providing new ways for discussing charity and morality. Allahyari explores these agencies' differing ideological orientations and the raced, classed, and gendered contexts they provide volunteers for doing charitable work. Drawing on participant observation, intensive interviewing, and content analysis of organizational publications, she looks in particular at the process of self-improvement for these volunteers. The competing visions of charity Allahyari finds at these two organizations reveal the complicated and contradictory politics of caring for the poor in the United States today.

Moral Responsibility and the Boundaries of Community

Moral Responsibility and the Boundaries of Community PDF

Author: Marion Smiley

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-09-15

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0226763250

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The question of responsibility plays a critical role not only in our attempts to resolve social and political problems, but in our very conceptions of what those problems are. Who, for example, is to blame for apartheid in South Africa? Is the South African government responsible? What about multinational corporations that do business there? Will uncovering the "true facts of the matter" lead us to the right answer? In an argument both compelling and provocative, Marion Smiley demonstrates how attributions of blame—far from being based on an objective process of factual discovery—are instead judgments that we ourselves make on the basis of our own political and social points of view. She argues that our conception of responsibility is a singularly modern one that locates the source of blameworthiness in an individual's free will. After exploring the flaws inherent in this conception, she shows how our judgments of blame evolve out of our configuration of social roles, our conception of communal boundaries, and the distribution of power upon which both are based. The great strength of Smiley's study lies in the way in which it brings together both rigorous philosophical analysis and an appreciation of the dynamics of social and political practice. By developing a pragmatic conception of moral responsibility, this work illustrates both how moral philosophy can enhance our understanding of social and political practices and why reflection on these practices is necessary to the reconstruction of our moral concepts.

Encyclopedia of Global Justice

Encyclopedia of Global Justice PDF

Author: Deen K. Chatterjee

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 1213

ISBN-13: 1402091591

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This encyclopedia provides a premier reference guide for students, scholars, policy makers, and others interested in assessing the moral consequences of global interdependence and understanding the concepts and arguments that shed light on the myriad aspects of global justice.