Moral Philosophy After 9/11 PDF Download

Author: Joseph Margolis
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 027102447X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Were the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks courageous &"freedom fighters&" or despicable terrorist murderers? These opposing characterizations reveal in extreme form the incompatibility between different moral visions that underlie many conflicts in the world today, conflicts that challenge us to consider how moral disputes may be resolved. Eschewing the resort to universal moral principles favored by traditional Anglo-American analytic philosophy, Joseph Margolis sets out to sketch an alternative approach that accepts the lack of any neutral ground or privileged normative perspective for deciding moral disputes.This &"second-best&" morality nevertheless aspires to achieve an &"objectively&" valid resolution through a dialectical procedure of reasoning toward a modus vivendi, an accommodation of prudential interests that are rooted in the customs and practices of the societies in conflict. In working out this approach, Margolis engages with a wide range of thinkers, from Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel through Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas, Rawls, Habermas, MacIntyre, Rorty, and Nussbaum, and his argument is enlivened by reference to many specific moral issues, such as abortion, the control of Kashmir, and the continuing struggle between the Muslim world and the West.

Author: Michael O'Keefe
Publisher: Melbourne Univ. Publishing
ISBN: 0522850499
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
This is the first book to address philosophically the moral and political underpinnings of terrorism and anti-terrorism. It brings together authors with different attitudes and original perspectives on attitudes and ethical and practical justifications for terrorism.

Author: Ted Honderich
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773572031
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Ted Honderich investigates the morality of the September 11th attacks and what terrorism tells us about ourselves and our obligations. Did we have a responsibility for what took place? Did we respond to it as we should have? What are we to do now? "After the Terror" inquires into the "natural fact" of morality and the worked-out moralities of philosophers. It reaches to the moral core of our lives. Honderich writes, "We can be held partly responsible for the 3,000 deaths at the twin towers and at the Pentagon. We are rightly to be held responsible along with the killers. We share the guilt. Those who condemn us have a reason to do so. Did we bring the killing at the twin towers on ourselves? Did we have it coming? Those offensive questions, and their offensive, but affirmative answer, do contain a truth."

Author: Timothy Shanahan
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
ISBN: 9780812695823
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Many of the most pressing questions raised by terrorism are philosophical in nature. This book explores the crucial ethical and theoretical issues, such as: What is "terrorism" and how is it different from other types of violence? Do recent terrorist attacks constitute a fundamentally "new" type of terrorism? How can a nation conduct a "just war" against terrorists? Is torture of terrorists during interrogation ever justified? Philosophers and terrorism experts answer these pressing moral and political questions with clarity and wisdom.

Author: Douglas Allen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199097097
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
9/11 marked the beginning of a century that is defined by widespread violence. Every other day seems to be a furthering of the already catastrophic present towards a more disastrous tomorrow. With climate change looming over us, frequent economic instability, religious wars, and relentless political mayhem, life for what we have made of it seems more and more unsustainable. Douglas Allen insists that we look to Gandhi, if only selectively and creatively, in order to move towards a nonviolent and sustainable future. Is a Gandhi-informed swaraj technology, valuable but humanly limited, possible? What would a Gandhian world—a more egalitarian, interconnected, decentralized—of globalization look like? Focusing on key themes in Gandhi’s thinking such as violence and nonviolence, absolute truth and relative truth, ethical and spiritual living, and his critique of modernity, the book compels us to rethink our positions today.

Author: Fritz Allhoff
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226014827
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
A provocative philosophical investigation into the ethics of torture, The War on Terror, and making tough choices in exceptional circumstances. The general consensus among philosophers is that the use of torture is never justified. In Terrorism, Ticking Time-Bombs, and Torture, Fritz Allhoff demonstrates the weakness of the case against torture; while allowing that torture constitutes a moral wrong, he nevertheless argues that, in exceptional cases, it represents the lesser of two evils. Allhoff does not take this position lightly. He begins by examining the way terrorism challenges traditional norms, discussing the morality of various practices of torture, and critically exploring the infamous ticking time-bomb scenario. After carefully considering these issues from a purely philosophical perspective, he turns to the empirical ramifications of his arguments, addressing criticisms of torture and analyzing the impact its adoption could have on democracy, institutional structures, and foreign policy. The crucial questions of how to justly authorize torture and how to set limits on its use make up the final section of this timely, provocative, and carefully argued book.

Author: David Wiggins
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674022140
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Almost every thoughtful person wonders at some time why morality says what it says and how, if at all, it speaks to us. David Wiggins surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions--and does so in a way that the thinking reader, increasingly perplexed by the everyday problem of moral philosophy, can follow. His work is thus an introduction to ethics that presupposes nothing more than the reader's willingness to read philosophical proposals closely and literally. Gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians, and a twentieth-century assortment of post-utilitarian thinkers, and drawing on sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil, and Philippa Foot, Wiggins points to the special role of the sentiments of solidarity and reciprocity that human beings will find within themselves. After examining the part such sentiments play in sustaining our ordinary ideas of agency and responsibility, he searches the political sphere for a neo-Aristotelian account of justice that will cohere with such an account of morality. Finally, Wiggins turns to the standing of morality and the question of the objectivity or reality of ethical demands. As the need arises at various points in the book, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers--Plato, C. S. Peirce, Darwin, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, John Rawls, Montaigne and others--always emphasizing the words of the philosophers under discussion, and giving readers the resources to arrive at their own viewpoint of why and how ethics matters.

Author: Rebecca Gordon
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019933644X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 reopened what many people in America had long assumed was a settled ethical question: Is torture ever morally permissible? Within days, some began to suggest that, in these new circumstances, the new answer was "yes." Rebecca Gordon argues that September 11 did not, as some have said, "change everything," and that institutionalized state torture remains as wrong today as it was on the day before those terrible attacks. Furthermore, U.S. practices during the "war on terror" are rooted in a history that began long before September 11, a history that includes both support for torture regimes abroad and the use of torture in American jails and prisons. Gordon argues that the most common ethical approaches to torture-utilitarianism and deontology (ethics based on adherence to duty)-do not provide sufficient theoretical purchase on the problem. Both approaches treat torture as a series of isolated actions that arise in moments of extremity, rather than as an ongoing, historically and socially embedded practice. She advocates instead a virtue ethics approach, based in part on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. Such an approach better illumines torture's ethical dimensions, taking into account the implications of torture for human virtue and flourishing. An examination of torture's effect on the four cardinal virtues-courage, temperance, justice, and prudence (or practical reason)-suggests specific ways in which each of these are deformed in a society that countenances torture. Mainstreaming Torture concludes with the observation that if the United States is to come to terms with its involvement in institutionalized state torture, there must be a full and official accounting of what has been done, and those responsible at the highest levels must be held accountable.

Author: Nancy Sherman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199325278
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Drawing on in-depth interviews with service women and men, Nancy Sherman weaves narrative with a philosophical and psychological analysis of the moral and emotional attitudes at the heart of the afterwars. Afterwar offers no easy answers for reintegration. It insists that we widen the scope of veteran outreach to engaged, one-on-one relationships with veterans.

Author: Ted Honderich
Publisher: London : Pluto Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Ted Honderich is one of the world's foremost philosophers of the Left. This is a revised edition of his classic text, Violence for Equality: Inquiries in Political Philosophy. It became a benchmark in political philosophy twenty years ago and came out in three editions. Now revised and updated, Terrorism for Humanity raises fundamental questions about the morality of terrorism or political violence -- questions that are cruelly inescapable in the light of recent events and the 'war on terror'. What is to be said for and against the terrorism that is directed to the goal of the Principle of Humanity -- the rescuing of people from lives of wretchedness? When is such terrorism right, if ever, and when is it wrong? Why is it wrong? In six lucid essays, Honderich challenges the presuppositions, prejudices and inconsistencies of liberal-democratic thinking. He takes hold of subjects with strong implications for liberation-terrorism, including Palestinian terrorism. He refuses to accept that the questions that arise are easily answered. Exploring the moral issues that lie at the heart of his subject, he reminds us that political philosophy should be an attempt to inquire with an open mind -- and that to open one's mind is not necessarily to lose one's convictions. This remarkable book will interest and challenge all teachers and students of philosophy and politics. It will capture anyone who wants actually to think about the morality of terrorism. Book jacket.