If, like Hegel and Dewey, one takes a historicist, anti-Platonist view of moral progress, one will be dubious about the idea that moraltheory can be more than the systematization of the widely-shared moral intuitions of a certain time and place. One will follow Shelley, Dewey, and Patricia Werhane in emphasizing the role of the imagination in making moral progress possible. Taking this stance will lead one to conclude that although philosophy is indeed relevant to applied ethics, it is not more (...) relevant than many other fields of study (such as history, law, political science, anthropology, literature, and theology). (shrink)

If, like Hegel and Dewey, one takes a historicist, anti-Platonist view of moral progress, one will be dubious about the idea that moraltheory can be more than the systematization of the widely-shared moral intuitions of a certain time and place. One will follow Shelley, Dewey, and Patricia Werhane in emphasizing the role of the imagination in making moral progress possible. Taking this stance will lead one to conclude that although philosophy is indeed relevant to applied ethics, it is not more (...) relevant than many other fields of study (such as history, law, political science, anthropology, literature, and theology). (shrink)

If, like Hegel and Dewey, one takes a historicist, anti-Platonist view of moral progress, one will be dubious about the idea that moraltheory can be more than the systematization of the widely-shared moral intuitions of a certain time and place. One will follow Shelley, Dewey, and Patricia Werhane in emphasizing the role of the imagination in making moral progress possible. Taking this stance will lead one to conclude that although philosophy is indeed relevant to applied ethics, it is not more (...) relevant than many other fields of study. (shrink)

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines--religious, philosophical, and moral--coexist within the (...) framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls ' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

Challenging the paradigm in ethics -- The spirit of the enterprise -- Social artifacts and ethical criticism -- General and particular in practical knowledge -- Virtues of benevolence and justice.

In this article, I want to draw attention to one strand ofthe complex web of processes that are involved when people group others, including themselves, into social categories. I will focus on the tendency to treat members of one's own group more favorably than nonmembers, a tendency that has been called ingroup favoritism. The structure of the article has three parts. First I will offer anevolutionary argument as to why ingroup favoritism, or something very much like it, is required by (...) theories of the evolution of altruism. I will then review some of the basic social psychological research findings dealing with social categorization generally, and ingroup favoritism specifically. Finally, I will examine two problems in business ethics from the point of view of ingroup favoritism to suggest ways in which social psychological principles and findings may be mobilized to help solve problems of racial or gender discrimination in business contexts. (shrink)