Virtue & Affluence

Virtue & Affluence PDF

Author: John C. Haughey

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 9781556128110

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Beginning in 1991, Jesuit priest and lecturer John Haughey was asked to conduct a series of weekend workshops for Christian people who had considerable wealth ? mostly multimillionaires. He was challenged to help them reflect on their responsibilities or ?call? with respect to their wealth, leading them as a group of peers to shed light on their own personal reflections and insights. Members of the middle class are intrigued by the wealthy but they also find that they are bedeviled by many of the same questions that bother those addressed in this challenging and incisive book.

The Virtue Of Prosperity

The Virtue Of Prosperity PDF

Author: Dinesh D'Souza

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2002-05-10

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0743242068

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In The Virtue of Prosperity, Dinesh D'Souza examines the spiritual and social crisis spawned by the new economy and new technologies of the last ten years. D'Souza questions the basic premise of the American dream that prosperity and "progress" will better the human condition. Anchored in history, rich in anecdote, and supported by state-of-the-art data, The Virtue of Prosperity is a tough-minded critique of our high-tech culture, with a surprising prescription for doing well and doing good.

The Virtue of Prosperity

The Virtue of Prosperity PDF

Author: Dinesh D'Souza

Publisher:

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13:

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Discusses the potential problems of technological advancement in America, such as class conflict and transformation of the human race due to life-span lengthening and parents' choosing children's genetic makeups, and proposes ways of using technology to promote overall prosperity while preserving values.

The Good of Affluence

The Good of Affluence PDF

Author: John R. Schneider

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 0802833632

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wealth incompatible with true Christianity? In The Good of Affluence John R. Schneider reopens the debate over the proper Christian attitude toward money, arguing, ultimately, that Scripture does indeed provide support for the responsible possession of wealth. This is a provocative book of Christian theology, written to help people seeking God in a culture that has grown from modern capitalism. By comparing classic Christian teaching on wealth with the realities of our modern economic world, Schneider challenges the common presumption that material affluence is inherently bad. Careful interpretation of Scripture narratives -- creation, exodus, exile, and more -- also shows that abundance is the condition that God envisions for all human beings and that faithful persons of wealth are part of this plan. Schneider believes that the "wealth-as-blessing" themes of the Old Testament are not to be spiritualized and do not run contrary to New Testament teachings but provide exactly the frame of reference for the incarnate identity, life, and teaching of Jesus, who came to make real the messianic feast, both in this age and in the age to come. Through insightful engagement with the biblical text Schneider overturns some of the most cherished and unquestioned assumptions of influential Christian writers (particularly Ronald Sider) on modern capitalist affluence. Yet Schneider's message is also finely balanced with the need for responsible Christian living. He offers rich Christians biblical affirmation but also challenges them to a life shaped by an uncommon sense of stewardship and compassion. Incisive, thought provoking, and biblically grounded, The Good of Affluence is a superb resource for anyone -- students, professors, businesspeople, general readers, discussion groups -- wishing to grapple seriously with the subject of faith and wealth.

Working Virtue

Working Virtue PDF

Author: Rebecca L. Walker

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-01-04

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0199271658

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A collective study of virtue theory and contemporary moral problems, this work discusses topics in bioethics, professional ethics, ethics of the family, law, interpersonal ethics, and the emotions. It offers a variety of perspectives, including pluralistic, eudaimonistic, care-theoretical, Chinese, comparative and stoic.

The Moral Demands of Affluence

The Moral Demands of Affluence PDF

Author: Garrett Cullity

Publisher: Clarendon Press

Published: 2006-09-21

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0191622567

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How much are we morally required to do to help people who are much worse off than us? On any credible moral outlook, other people's pressing need for assistance can ground moral requirements on us to help them—-requirements of beneficence. How far do those requirements extend? One way to think about this is by means of a simple analogy: an analogy between joining in efforts to help people at a distance and rescuing a needy person yourself, directly. Part I of Garrett Cullity's book examines this analogy. In some ways, the analogy is not only simple, but politically and metaphysically simplistic. However, it contains an important truth: we are morally required to help other people, indirectly as well as directly. But the number of needy people in the world is enormous, and their need is very great. Once we start to recognize requirements to help them, when is it morally acceptable to stop? Cullity answers this question in Part II. Examining the nature of beneficence, he argues that its requirements only make sense on the assumption that many of the interests we share in common-rich and poor alike-are interests it is not wrong to pursue.

What Money Can't Buy

What Money Can't Buy PDF

Author: Michael J. Sandel

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2012-04-24

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1429942584

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Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we allow corporations to pay for the right to pollute the atmosphere? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars? Auctioning admission to elite universities? Selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? In What Money Can't Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes on one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets? In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?In his New York Times bestseller Justice, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can't Buy, he provokes an essential discussion that we, in our market-driven age, need to have: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society—and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets don't honor and that money can't buy?

Private Virtue and Public Policy

Private Virtue and Public Policy PDF

Author: James Finn

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 1990-01-01

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9781412831932

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Private virtue is a major factor in forming public policies, including those that affect the material well-being of citizens. This is a central thesis of Catholic social thought, but it is not a parochial view. As this affluent nation grapples with resistant social issues of all kinds-drugs, homelessness, poverty, the consequences of sexual permissiveness, inadequate education, and the breakdown of families-it is becoming increasingly evident that the need for private virtue is a central fact of our political and social life. In this respect, Catholic social thought and the American experience are mutually supportive. This volume examines the implications of this statement. In a sense, it is the next step in the dialogue and debate initiated by the Catholic bishops in the United States over a period of years in the mid-eighties. The pastoral letter that resulted from their deliberatons asked how the economic life of the United States could best serve the material and spiritual well-being of people, both those in the United States and those in other countries. It also proposed some answers. Even before the bishops released their statement, the Lay Commission on Catholic Social teaching and the U.S. Economy joined the debate with its own lay letter, which both overlaps and differs in significant respects from the bishops' statement. This volume, which is initiated by the Lay Commission, takes the debate even further. Various experts discuss the relationship between public policies and private, virtue and examine specific aspects of economic life. Among these are: the meaning of "economic rights," what to do about Third World debt, economic justice and the family, and certain macroeconomic issues. Their view is independent, authoritative, clearly articulated, and inevitably they will be controversial. They also enrich and further the ongoing dialogue on how best to make the economy serve the people, and in particular the most deprived. Contributors include William E. Simon and Michael Novak, chairman and vice-chairman of the Lay Commission, J. Brian Benestad, Allan Carlson, J. Peter Grace, Howard J. Wiarda, John P. Cullity, James Q. Wilson, and the editor of this volume James Finn.

The Price of Civilization

The Price of Civilization PDF

Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs

Publisher: Random House Canada

Published: 2011-10-04

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0307359972

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For the first time, Jeffrey Sachs, the pre-eminent economist of our times, turns his attention to his homeland, the United States, to reveal the stunning inadequacy of American-style capitalism and to offer a bold and ambitious plan to change it. Jeffrey Sachs has visited more than a hundred countries on five continents, invited to help diagnose and cure seemingly intractable economic problems. Now, in the wake of the worst recession in recent history, Sachs turns his focus on the United States. The complexity of the world economy means that the American form of capitalism, which has been exported around the globe, brought the world to the brink of the precipice--and it will do so again, if measures aren't taken to fix it. This will require not only government action but for US citizens to reach a consensus on their government's role in everyday life and on their basic values--hugely controversial issues in recent years. The scary thing is if they don't, it will affect us all. The good news is that Sachs, in this book, clearly and persuasively leads his readers to an understanding of what the common ground of reform can and should--indeed, must--be.

Mass Affluence

Mass Affluence PDF

Author: Paul Nunes

Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9781591391968

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This is the first book to explain how the fundamentals of marketing strategy must change in response to this broad-based increase in wealth The authors specifically addresses how to fine tune a mass marketing approach that captures the value created from greater consumer affluence. After years of expensive and largely ineffective attempts at one-to-one marketing and other complex varieties of microsegmentation, the business environment is ripe for a switch back to the relative simplicity of a mass marketing mindset Flouts conventional wisdom: the authors in-depth research uncovered that today's moneyed masses are completely different than the mass market of decades past in terms of how much they have to spend and what they are willing to spend it on. Reveals the mass marketing strategies a range of companies have already successfully used to hit pay dirt with products ranging from oral care to laundry detergent to exotic automobiles.