Ethics Books

The book arrived timely and in great condition. I would purchase from this seller again.

It is nice to be able to buy books from a publisher that believes in doing things right, even if the books might be a bit obscure for all the usual reasons. Having purchased the Great Books Volume 39 on Kant earlier this year, which was an economical collection that included his three most famous volumes as well as Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) and Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, which are works that Kant's THE METAPHYSICS OF MORALS in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy does not include, it is interesting to see how these two books still manage to overlap.

The Great Books Kant includes a translation (1887) by W. Hastie of Kant's 1797 works General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals (pp. 383-394) and The Science of Right (pp. 395-458). This book contains Mary Gregor's translation of the same text on pages 1-124.

Since Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States in 1861-65, Americans have tended to think that everybody who was important to us would be living in the same country, and democracy would allow the majority to dictate the basic laws which everyone would have to adhere to. Kant has to come up with rules for wars between states that need to maintain a balance of power, but his result is to deny economic motives. "The reason there cannot be a war of subjugation is not that this extreme measure a state might use to achieve a condition of peace would in itself contradict the right of a state; it is rather that the idea of the right of nations involves only the concept of an antagonism in accordance with principles of outer freedom by which each can preserve what belongs to it, but not a way of acquiring, by which one state's increase of power could threaten others." (section 56, p. 117). A written constitution ought to be more powerful than treaties "which can be dissolved at any time, not a federation (like that of the American states) which is based on a constitution and can therefore not be dissolved." (section 61, p. 120).

Somehow Kant lacked the idea that heads of state would regularly be deprived of their rule and punished for official acts. "The sovereign can also take the ruler's authority away from him, depose him, or reform his administration. But it cannot punish him . . .; for punishment is, again, an act of the executive authority, which has the supreme capacity to exercise coercion in conformity with the law, and it would be self-contradictory for him to be subject to coercion." (section 49, p. 94). If the ultimate weapons wipe out life on the planet, we would find ourselves in a condition already imagined by Kant:

"Accordingly, every murderer--anyone who commits murder, orders it, or is an accomplice in it -- must suffer death; this is what justice, as the idea of judicial authority wills in accordance with universal laws that are grounded a priori. -- If, however, the number of accomplices (correi) to such deed is so great that the state, in order to have no such criminals in it, could soon find itself without subjects; and if the state still does not want to dissolve, that is, to pass over into the state of nature, which is far worse because there is no external justice at all in it (and if it especially does not want to dull the people's feeling by the spectacle of a slaughterhouse), then the sovereign must also have it in his power, in this case of necessity (casus necessitatis), to assume the role of judge (to represent him) and pronounce a judgment that decrees for the criminals a sentence other than capital punishment, such as deportation, which still preserves the population. This cannot be done in accordance with public law but it can be done by an executive decree that is, by an act of majesty which, as clemency, can always be exercised only in individual cases." (section 49, pp. 107-108).

Kant died over 200 years ago, unaware that economic interests could become so powerful that even the media would act as a single unit and find itself dedicated to perpetuating a power elite that could always, in each and every instance, join with leaders committed to mindlessly militaristic politics that used statistics on gross hyperconsumption to make itself fiscally worse than worthless, deporting jobs, cutting government programs to prepare for a lean and mean future in which worthless i.o.u.s would compete with other countries that still possessed natural resources and productive capacity, as if nothing could be better than to make democratic government as powerless as possible.

In a reply to a reviewer of Kant's book, Kant pointed out, "that there is a categorical imperative, Obey the authority who has power over you (in whatever does not conflict with inner morality) -- this is the offensive proposition called into question." (p. 136). Part II of this book, called Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue (pp. 139-232), has a Preface in which, "Hence all doctrine of virtue, in lecture halls, from pulpits, or in popular books, also becomes ridiculous if it is decked out in scraps of metaphysics. --But it is not useless, much less ridiculous, to investigate in metaphysics . . ." (p. 141). Maxims and duty are discussed in the Introduction, along with "a categorical imperative of pure practical reason, and therefore an imperative which connects a concept of duty with that of an end in general." (p. 149). There are 53 sections and a conclusion on religion being beyond pure moral philosophy. The index on pages 235-241 has few names, but suggests a few pages to check for topics like hypocrisy and ridicule.

All of Kant's works are outstanding, but what makes the versions of Kant's works good or bad (that I can read) is the translator. Since this book is the only complete translation of both parts of "The Metaphysics of Morals," I had doubts about its quality. But, as I found out, this book has been translated smoothly -- although I cannot compare it with the German version.

What I like about Mary Gregor's translation, is her use of footnotes. She clearly defines Latin phrases and the layered meanings of German words whose depth and meaning would be in too hasty of a translation.

Also, she introduces Kant's main ideas very well; and by doing so, expands and clarifies the ideas he presents in his treatise. The footnotes are not excessive; Gregor seems to have balanced them well. The presentation of the footnotes, typography, and the library grade (acid free) paper make this book a keeper.

The author managed to fit tons of valuable information and personal views on business in this one book! I could definitely tell this book was written from personal experience. The author really knows what she is talking about. Karma and the Art of Business is great for anyone in business, whether you're a secretary, a manager or even have plans of starting your own business, this book will help achieve your goals in business.

The author managed to fit tons of valuable information and personal views on business in this one book! I could definitely tell this book was written from personal experience. The author really knows what she is talking about. Karma and the Art of Business is great for anyone, whether you're a secretary, a manager or even have plans of starting your own business, this book will help achieve your goals in business.

I can honestly say I haven't enjoyed a business book this much since I read Who Moved My Cheese a couple of years ago. It's easy to read and offers a ton of useful information for anyone that wants to go into business or works for someone else.

I'm looking forward to reading future books from this new author!

Being able to laugh at one's self is a sure sign of confidence. "Laugh for God's Sake: Where Jewish Humor and Jewish Ethics Meet" seeks to speak of Jewish humor and how it seems to not be exclusionary to gentiles and touches upon the very fundamental things that makes us all human. Hoping to teach readers the value of ethics as they laugh along the book, "Laugh for God's Sake: Where Jewish Humor and Jewish Ethics Meet" is a top pick for both Judaic Studies and Humor collections.

This book does something you would have thought was impossible. It is at once very serious and very funny, intertwining a description of Jewish ethics with garlands of traditional jokes by and about Jews.

The insight upon which Rabbi Schachter builds his analysis is that jokes reflect the culture that produces them and, in the case of Jews, that jokes especially reflect what their inventors thought about right and wrong, good and bad. After an introduction, each chapter of the book examines a set of ethical convictions -- about, say, loyalty or truthfulness -- and then collects a set of jokes that illuminate the (sometime ambivalent) Jewish attitudes towards these convictions. The final product is a mosaic of traditional Jewish attitudes towards ethics that is more subtle and nuanced than any straightfoward explication could be.

Some of the jokes in this book are funny by themselves (you'll find yourself retelling them), and some are poignant rather than funny. Both sorts of jokes serve the author's purpose. The book's cumulative impact is that it leaves one with a deeper understanding and appreciation of Jewish humor and the very serious things it says about Jewish life and belief.

"Laugh for God's sake: where Jewish humor and Jewish ethics meet" is an erudite analysis of the intersection of humor and ethics in Jewish tradition. It is, first of all, a great read. Not a joke book, but filled with lots of jokes nonetheless.

Simply reading the Table of Contents makes one impatient to get to the body of the book, and the body of the book does not disappoint.

H. L. A. Hart, who was a contemporary of Lord Patrick Devlin, criticized him for his very rigid position on the government's role in enacting and enforcing morality laws against its citizens. Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart lived from 1907 to 1992. Hart was one of the most influential philosophers of law in the twentieth century, and he taught at Oxford University. His 1963, book "Law, Liberty and Morality" is a refutation of Devlin's theories of the government's role in criminalizing private moral misconduct. They both debated on opposite sides of the British government's 1957, Wolfenden Report which looked into the subject of decriminalizing homosexuality and prostitution. Devlin was the only member of the committee of fourteen who voted against decriminalizing the two acts in question. Hart, though not a member of the committee nevertheless, was very influential in the governments relaxing its laws against homosexuality in 1967. Though Hart is supportive of the idea that society did have some common moral values worth supporting, he is troubled by Devlin's far-reaching statement that, "immorality jeopardizes or weakens society." In fact, Hart accused Devlin of holding the position that any change in a society's morality would bring about its demise. Devlin balked at Hart's accusation, and retorted that he only believed the idea that any change in a society's morality could bring about its demise. Hart is definitely in agreement with John Stuart Mill's concept of liberty when he writes, "...society can not only survive individual divergences in other fields from its prevalent morality, but profit from them."

The other aspect of the disagreement between Devlin and Hart was in the arena of how much of an impact religious values should dictate in a society's moral values and laws. In his book, Devlin asked the question, how citizens were supposed to derive moral values if they did not rely on religious authority. He answered, that lawyers had generally ignored the question and had generally accepted the notion that Christian morality remained just as acceptable to society as a whole today as it had been when the church was the sole arbiter of morality in the past. Devlin also takes philosophers to task for thinking that a human being's conscience can fill the void that religious morality would leave if it were no longer in force. "It cannot, unless some way be found of making up a collective conscience." Devlin seriously doubted that humankind would ever be able to find a collective conscience. However, he did not want to stifle people's freedom in asking questions about what the state's role should be regarding moral values. In fact Devlin writes that, "The unending search for truth goes on and so does the struggle towards the perfect society." Instead of outlawing all immoral acts, Hart advocated for a more nuanced approach in answer to Devlin's question on when society should outlaw immorality. Hart separated immoral acts into two types--public and private. Hart supported outlawing public immoral acts, such as prostitution, to preserve public decency. However, he was not in favor of outlawing private acts considered by society as immoral, such as homosexuality, since these acts took place out of view of the public and thus, protecting decency would not be a concern for society in that instance. Hart's argument provided a more balanced approach between society's demand for correct moral behavior and the desire for individual liberty.

I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.

H.L.A. Hart is perhaps the 20th century's greatest legal philosopher, and this small book is a powerful expression of his views on the relationship between law and morality. Simply put, Hart takes the side of John Stuart Mill on the issue of legal regulation of vice. The arguments are straightforward, and Hart gives opposing viewpoints a fair hearing before offering his rebutalls.

I first read the 1963 edition in a course called "Philosophy of Law" at Stanford in '66, and it's one of the few texts from then that I know I have in the attic, and have read at least five times since. It's just a little book, but invaluable.

He organizes the arguments around the issue of the legalization of prostitution, but the specific arguments are made to carry the water of all the similar issues. It is dense, but beautifully written and beautifully argued, you just have to read it a bit slowly to let each paragraph soak in.

In the wonderful 'Law, Love and Language' Herbert McCabe shows us that ethics is about all human action and interaction, and that we are intrinsically in conversation, all our action is response to others, and this economy of response determines our environment too. There is no split here between nature and culture (between `is' and `ought'). There is no particular need to attribute anything here to Aquinas or Wittgenstein, for McCabe is simply saying that we are not disembodied beings isolated from another in an inert or neutral or hostile world. McCabe's argument is simply good Christian theology, so he shows that we are not only embodied, but social and linguistic beings too. McCabe's version of ethics as all human action is therefore very much bigger than the usual accounts of morality investigated through a small number of difficult moral problems. Herbert McCabe replaces our modern dualist account of language and life (for every thing, a word timelessly exists, so language is simply the correspondence of word to thing) with a more supple dynamic (`aristotelian') account which allows that what we do really alters who we are, what there is and how we relate to it. What we think of things and how we name them is not just the (post-)modern power game of the individual. We inherit and inhabit our social world along with how we think of it, as we live and interact in interlocking sets of language-speakers and communities. This deflates the (post-) modern Cartesian view which makes naming an act of power by the individual who is above all relationship and responsibility. The effect of his book is to show how in hock we are to the disembodying pull of Cartesian thought, which turns us essentially a demonic eye that hovers just above the surface of world. In other words, McCabe has recovered important aspects of theological anthropology and the doctrine of creation.

McCabe was one of a generation of deeply intelligent, clear-headed Dominican theologians and philosophers (including Cornelius Ernst and Victor White) who published little, but had a huge influence on post-war Catholicism in England and eventually around the world. In this book (first published under the title 'What is Ethics all about), McCabe seeks to provide a coherent account of ethics as the product of a kind of judgment that has much more to do with literary criticism's insights than those of logicians and lawyers. His 'grammatical' approach draws its inspiration from Wittgenstein in many ways, and foreshadows some of the concerns taken up by MacIntyre in later years.

McCabe is eminently readable as well as sensible. His other volumes still in print also offer great insight into ethical concerns, but in less sustained ways than this volume.

Sick of liberals who believe "all you need is love" and conservatives who just think morality means "following God's law"? Sure there is something besides Mill and Kant? Read McCabe's utterly groundbreaking book, marginalized in 1968 (the year of Humanae Vitae), but now more vital than ever. McCabe argues that what proponents of law and proponents of "doing the most loving thing" fail to understand is how language works. McCabe then persuasively argues for the revolutionary significance of the Christian story in ways that will surprise most readers.

This is by far the best book on the subject primarily because of the careful attention paid to presenting a broad variety of perspectives on and strategies for achieving justice. Taken as whole this book is a great historical road map of the various ways lawyers have participated in bettering the material conditions of the lives of the underrepresented and marginalized. This is the perfect book for anyone who is interested in the law and social change.

This volume is a welcome addition to the teaching materials on legal ethics. It pulls together a diverse collection of important writing on the subject of lawyers and social justice. It includes both older "classics" and newer emerging voices and perspectives. And it includes writing from a range of academic perspectives--legal history, moral philosophy, critical theory, and clinical scholarship--that are rarely pulled together in one place. Although each selection is severely edited, they are packaged and juxtaposed in ways that distill the different perspectives represented by each author. As a result, the collection presents the deeper questions that legal ethicists are asking to the reader in a way that makes the questions both accessible and challenging. The introductory material and discussion questions that frame each section are thoughtful and provocative. As someone who teaches law students in both legal ethics classes and in hands-on clinical courses, I am very pleased to see this book and can't wait to use it, because I think it will provide a perfect vehicle for helping my students think about their professional roles and responsibilities as lawyers.

I am not a lawyer and I don't much like lawyers, but I picked this book up in my local book store and I was amazed. It actually discusses the ways in which some lawyers have understood their work as a way of furthering social justice. I loved the parts about how lawyers helped the NAACP achieve civil rights for African-Americans, and also the parts about how lawyers have developed theories that connect lawyering with civil rights, feminism, critical race theory and poverty rights. If more lawyers thought this way, we'd have a much more just society. The introduction says the book is intended in part for use in law school in lawyers' ethics classes, and I hope it is used for this. But it is fascinating reading for nonlawyers interested in law and social justice too.

I laughed, I cried, I bought three copies. This is one of the most enlightening book you will ever read, please buy as many copies as you can. I have to say he is one of the greatest future brother in laws I can ask for. Great job Pete!

The author does a great job at making the subject matter clear and understandable. I highly recommend this book.

Wow! I can't beleive it. Dr. Vanderschraaf really gets your attention and never lets go throughout the entire book. What a page turner!! I just know that I won't be able to just read this one just once. It's really amazing, and you won't believe the ending! I don't want to spoil it, but be prepared for a major surprise. Kudos to this fine author! He really takes the subject and delivers it to the common reader. Great read!

I enjoyed this book and I'm sure I will need it for refernce in the future. It's the kind of book that can always be used.

A friend of mine let me borrow the first book written by the MS Wilson. I read it, agreed with some points and pondered other points. I allowed life to work on me. I felt the need to order my own copy and found out that the author had written a revised version of the original book. I ordered several copies.

Life has a funny way of working things out in your life. I now realize there was a lot of truth in what the author had to say. If I stopped fighting to prove her wrong I could make some positive change in my own relationship with my spouse.

The author rewrote the book because she too had to live out what she had written some 15+ years earlier. Her husband had to remind her to read her own book.

This is a book that one SHOULD read over and over again, and allow yourself to grow.

For everyone--male or female, young or older--who wants to truly understand submission in the divine sense. Unfortunately, our culture has distorted it, and therefore many people--even Christians--do not understand what the concept truly means.
A little book that has the power--if applied in your life--to make big changes...

Wonderful resource with brilliant and concise introductions to each subject area.

After a few years of delay, the central legal body of Conservative Judaism - the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards - has finally released their collection of teshuvot (responsa) on bio-medical and bio-ethical issues. These learned and insightful papers provide us with a non-fundamentalist way to apply the resources of Jewish law and ethics to modern day dilemmas.

The book states that "In the Jewish tradition, the central means of addressing these concerns is through halakhah, or Jewish law. While the insights of halakhah are central to the lives of many Jews, these perspectives have also been found valuable by persons of other religious traditions and secular outlooks. This volume presents papers on biomedical ethics that integrate the resources of millennia with the most recent developments in medicine and ethical thought. The papers include some of the most thoughtful and important works in Jewish medical ethics on such issues as treatment decisions near the end of life, abortion, and reproductive technologies."

The papers are presented in four general divisions, most of which are divided into a number of topical sections. Each section begins with an introduction summarizing the documents and highlighting points of special interest, including conclusions of practical application. The first division is "Responsibilities in the Creation of Life," with sections discussing artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, and surrogate motherhood. The second division, "Responsibilities for Fetal Life," contains papers on abortion. The longest division is called "Responsibilities at the End of Life," and its sections present extensive discussions of medical care at the end of life, shorter works reflecting on and developing these basic positions, and consideration of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. The final division, "Responsibilities for the Health Needs of Others," addresses organ transplantation and autopsy, and new challenges involving genetic engineering, smoking, and responsibilities for providing health care.

Many topics are discussed here--adoption, fertility aids, life support, even bio-engineered foods. Chapters are written with intros and summaries, which helps the book serve as a quick reference on complex topics. Or, read all the in between for different viewpoints, and background thoughts that led to the decision. I read it cover to cover, even though most topics aren't relevant to my life right now, just to know the Jewish (conservative) view. It's interesting to read the Jewish response to twenty-first century concerns.

Rabbi Alper made vacation at the lake with my tent and boat double the fun by bringing out the joys of life as we all know it, but few express it. The joys are sometimes deep in their meaningfulness, sometimes light and uplifting, but always worth reading and reliving, even when they bring a tear of joy to the eye of the reader - me. Many a vacationeer walked by and saw the title, and called out, "Isn't That the Truth!" They had no idea how much better it was made because of this book.

Rabbi Alper's book is must reading for anyone. He inspires us to find holiness in every facet of our lives. It was especially meaningful because he speaks of all the places I knew as a child. Everyone will enjoy his heartfelt stories and his words of inspiration. This little book provides valuable insight for every reader.

This book is for everyone. It is not particularly Jewish, even thought the author is a rabbi. Alper has a real connection to people and the things that make them special. This is an uplifting, interesting package of short, pithy moments and situations. Alper is excellent with language.