Enrique Dussel's writings span the theology of liberation, critiques of discourse ethics, evaluations of Marx, Levinas, Habermas, and others, but most importantly, the development of a philosophy written from the underside of Eurocentric modernist teleologies, an ethics of the impoverished, and the articulation of a unique Latin American theoretical perspective. This anthology of original articles by U.S. philosophers elucidating Dussel's thought, offers critical analyses from a variety of perspectives, including feminist ones. Also included is an essay by Dussel that responds (...) to these essays. (shrink)

Critical Theory is usually associated with an intellectual tradition which emerged from the work of a group of social philosophers who coalesced around the Institute for Social Research, established in Frankfurt in 1923. This tradition is now considered to have two major branches: the first related to the work of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Leo Lowenthal, and Walter Benjamin, while the second pertains to the expansion of this original work which has been proffered by Jürgen Habermas, (...) Claus Offe, Niklas Luhmann, Karl-Otto Apel, and others. It should be immediately noted that Critical Theory does not form a unity, for it does mean different things to both its early and current adherents. Without overstating the case, however, the common theme which unites these theorists is a dislike for the types of determinism which saw socialism arising automatically from either appropriate social conditions or at the behest of elite party members. In each case the belief was inadvertently advanced that people do not make their own history. In line with the work of Lukács and Korsch, these critical theorists wanted to develop a more vital Marxist theory, one which understands human praxis to be at the center of social development and, thus, human liberation. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Bd. 1. Sprachanalytik, Semiotik, Hermeneutik. Bd. 2. Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft.

Technology regulation is one of the most important public policy issues facing society and governments at the present time, and further clarity could improve decision making in this complex and challenging area. Since the rise of the internet in the late 1990s, a number of approaches to technology regulation have been proposed, prompted by the associated changes in society, business and law that this development brought with it. However, over the past decade, the impact of technology has been profound and (...) the associated issues for government have extremely challenging, ranging across cyber security, artificial intelligence, and many other areas. To that end, this article introduces a Theory of Institutional Technology Actors and Norms (TITAN), a normatively informed and institutionally-based account of technology regulation. It focuses on the moral and legal (including regulatory) rights and responsibilities of the relevant actors and seeks to inform the development of regulation that is both fit for purpose, rights compliant and fair for all concerned. The account incorporates the perspectives of four key categories of groups in society: producers of technology, users of technology, government regulators, and normative policy shapers. (shrink)

The present book tries to show that the transcentendal-pragmatic approach to discourse ethics can reconstruct the genesis of this situation and provide a ...

John Rawls's A Theory of Justice was published in December 1971 and has already established itself as a landmark. No other philosophical work, in our time or before, has, to my knowledge, excited so much attention in so short a time and in such varied circles. Clearly the book answers to a set of needs that have just recently surfaced, and it was published at just the right time to benefit from changing directions in philosophy and other areas of intellectual (...) life brought on by enormous and accelerating changes in social conditions and concerns, by the disaster of Vietnam, and by the sense that something serious and sufficient must be done to counter the increasing fragmentation of knowledge and the divorce of science from society. Rawls gives one the sense of putting it all together; of seeing things clearly and seeing them whole; of joining together again economics, jurisprudence, and social and moral theory; and of putting philosophy to work once again in the service of society and humanity. In particular, he gives one the sense that there can be a science of justice, of morality, and of values. (shrink)

At the beginning of one of his inimitable discourses William James once said, ‘I am only a philosopher, and there is only one thing that a philosopher can be relied on to do, and that is, to contradict other philosophers’.1 In his succeeding discourse James himself departed from this theme. And so shall I. I shall not be contradicting other philosophers—at least not very often. What I aim to do is to take a fresh look at one of the main (...) traditions in American philosophy for insight and illumination on a way of dealing with some of the most serious issues of our time. But before I turn to that, my main theme, I want to pursue for a bit some variations on another, the cultural relevance of philosophy, for, as I view the matter, they are related. (shrink)

There are a number of different ways of teaching ethics, and there is ample room for a number of different ways of teaching ethics. I am sure that there is no one way that is right, but I am also sure that there are a number of ways, some of them in widespread use, that are wrong. It is wrong, for example, to teach ethics by simply presenting and discussing a number of ethical theories, in isolation from the actual or (...) imagined problems of morality that these theories were developed in response to. It is wrong, in other words, to present ethics as a series or collection of disembodied abstractions. It is also a mistake to attempt to teach ethics simply by presenting the history of the subject, because this still presents the subject as consisting in the unregulated combat of a number of rival theories, and from this one’s students can get no idea of what the problems are with which these theories were attempting to deal, or even whether they were all attempting to deal with the same problems. Yet this is better, if only because the early and important moral philosophers almost all had a very lively sense of what the problems were with which they were attempting to deal, and a careful reading of their works will bring these out. The move to higher and higher orders of abstraction started in the nineteenth century, and has reached its peak, apparently, in this one. (shrink)

The contributors examine the distinctive aspects of American philosophy, cultural and historical experience.

A volume of lectures in American philosophy by leading authorities in the field. The leading American philosophers from Jonathan Edwards to Morris Cohen are covered and further contributions discuss American legal philosophy and the background to the American constitution. The contributors examine the distinctive aspects of American philosophy and bring out its relation to American cultural and historical experience. An extensive bibliography of the subject is also provided.

Essays on Ethics and Method is a selection of the shorter writings of the great nineteenth-century moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick. Sidgwick's monumental work The Methods of Ethics is a classic of philosophy; this new volume is a fascinating complement to it. The volume will be a rich resource for anyone interested in moral philosophy or the development of modern analytical philosophy.

My title may generate some perplexity. It is certainly not a familiar one. So I should make it plain at the outset that I shall not be talking about the ethics of organizations or associations or groups. I want to direct attention to the ethical and valuational questions associated with social institutions, and I distinguish institutions from associations and organizations. One question I am aiming at is whether the principles and standards applicable to moral judgments of actions and of persons—call (...) them individual principles—are also applicable, or applicable with only minor changes, to the judgment and critique and evaluation of institutions and practices. This is not the sole question of institutional ethics, but it is a main one. (shrink)

My title may generate some perplexity. It is certainly not a familiar one. So I should make it plain at the outset that I shall not be talking about the ethics of organizations or associations or groups. I want to direct attention to the ethical and valuational questions associated with social institutions, and I distinguish institutions from associations and organizations. One question I am aiming at is whether the principles and standards applicable to moral judgments of actions and of persons—call (...) them individual principles—are also applicable, or applicable with only minor changes, to the judgment and critique and evaluation of institutions and practices. This is not the sole question of institutional ethics, but it is a main one. (shrink)

The author asks what normative ethics is. He defines its most important tasks, and argues against ethnocentrism and relativism. He is against associating morals with religious attitudes and confining it to the sphere of sexual life. Metaethics is to him the science of the nature, foundations and methods of normative ethics. He does not find this science to be morally neutral.