Responsibility

According to how we treat others, we acquire merit or guilt, deserve praise or blame, and receive reward or punishment, looking in the end for atonement. At times we need people to forgive and show us mercy. In this study distinguished theological philosopher Richard Swinburne examines how these moral concepts apply to humans in their dealings with each other, and applies these findings determining which versions of traditional Christian doctrines--sin and original sin, redemption, sanctification, and heaven and hell--are considered morally acceptable.

Kane offers a provocative and original account of the issues surrounding free will and moral responsibility. He presents a version of the "incompatibilist" or "libertarian" view of free will, defending the classic view of free will as "the power of agents to be the ultimate creators and sustainers of their own ends and purposes" against a wide range of modern critics. This book also serves as a comprehensive survey of recent controversies about free will, covering most of the debates of the past 25 years.

In an effort to create a risk-free society, our government has put regulations & entitlement programs ahead of sound planning, with disastrous results. Challenges the assumption that liberals have a monopoly on compassion. The true measure of compassion lies not in the intensity of emotion but in the public good that accompanies an act.

Jay Wallace advances a powerful and sustained argument against the common view that accountability requires freedom of will. Instead, he maintains, the fairness of holding people responsible depends on their rational competence: the power to grasp moral reasons and to control their behavior accordingly.

George W. Jarecke and Nancy K. Plant present a selection of cases across a broad spectrum of American law to demonstrate that t our society relies inappropriately on the legal system to cure ill the system was not designed to address.

Jarecke an Plant note that while we in the United States worry considerably about the problem on individual assumption of responsibility -- whether for personal mistakes, financial setbacks, or pure bad luck -- we appear uneasy about he concept and unclear bout what it mens on a daily basis. Not only are we incapable of accepting personal responsibility; we barely know what it mens to do so.

Mistakenly, we turn to the legal system to solve this dilemma. Yet our laws as our legislators write them, and as juries apply them send mixed messages about whether and how we should exercise personal responsibility.

Each chapter of confounded Expectation features one main case ot explain one legal theory, with other cases noted as examples of facets of each theory. To demonstrate the law that requires merchants to guarantee the quality of their product, for example, Jarecke and Plant discuss the case of the band the whose fund-raising luncheon menu included turkey salad contaminated by samonella. Peripheral cases include a horse falsely sold as a gelding, a riding mower that tipped over when used as instructed, makeup that was gerodontia to be safe but caused a rash, and pigs sick with hog cholera.

Rarely discussed in ethics courses is the topic of excuses. McDowell argues convincingly that not only do excuses offer the most illuminating way to understand the true nature of ethical problems, they also suggest ways of solving them. When professionals are accused of acting unethically, when are their excuses valid and when are they not? Professionals know what's ethical, but social and economic pressures create conflicts in compliance. McDowell explores what they are--readably, persuasively, sympathetically, without didacticism. Professionals in all fields, struggling to be both successful and ethical, will find the book challenging, provocative, yet reassuring. It will also be an important resource in graduate courses in business and professional ethics.

Can we reconcile the idea that we are free and responsible agents with the idea that what we do is determined according to natural laws? For centuries, philosophers have tried in different ways to show that we can. Hilary Bok takes a fresh approach here, as she seeks to show that the two ideas are compatible by drawing on the distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning.Bok argues that when we engage in practical reasoning--the kind that involves asking "what should I do?" and sifting through alternatives to find the most justifiable course of action--we have reason to hold ourselves responsible for what we do. But when we engage in theoretical reasoning--searching for causal explanations of events--we have no reason to apply concepts like freedom and responsibility. Bok contends that libertarians' arguments against "compatibilist" justifications of moral responsibility fail because they describe human actions only from the standpoint of theoretical reasoning. To establish this claim, she examines which conceptions of freedom of the will and moral responsibility are relevant to practical reasoning and shows that these conceptions are not vulnerable to many objections that libertarians have directed against compatibilists. Bok concludes that the truth or falsity of the claim that we are free and responsible agents in the sense those conceptions spell out is ultimately independent of deterministic accounts of the causes of human actions.Clearly written and powerfully argued, Freedom and Responsibility is a major addition to current debate about some of philosophy's oldest and deepest questions.

Are there key respects in which character and character defects are voluntary? Can agents with serious vices be rational agents? Jonathan Jacobs answers in the affirmative. Moral character is shaped through voluntary habits, including the ways we habituate ourselves, Jacobs believes. Just as individuals can voluntarily lead unhappy lives without making unhappiness an end, so can they degrade their ethical characters through voluntary action that does not have establishment of vice as its end. Choosing Character presents an account of ethical disability, expanding the domain of responsibility and explicating the role of character in ethical cognition.

Jacobs contends that agents become ethically disabled voluntarily when their habits impair their ability to properly appreciate ethical considerations. Such agents are rational, responsible individuals who are yet incapable of virtuous action. The view develops and modifies Aristotelian claims concerning the fixity of character. Jacobs' interpretation is developed in contrast to the overlooked work of Maimonides, who also used Aristotelian resources but argued for the possibility of character change. The notion of ethical disability has profound ramifications for ethics and for current debates about blame and punishment.

In this original study, Jamie Mayerfeld undertakes a careful inquiry into the meaning and moral significance of suffering. Understanding suffering in hedonistic terms as an affliction of feeling, he addresses difficulties associated with its identification and measurement. He then turns to an examination of the duty to relieve suffering: its content, its weight relative to other moral considerations, and the role it should play in our lives. L Among the claims defended in the book are that suffering needs to be distinguished from both physical pain and the frustration of desire, that interpersonal comparisons of the intensity of happiness and suffering are possible, that several psychological processes hinder our awareness of other people's suffering, and that the prevention of suffering should often be pursued indirectly. Mayerfeld concludes his discussion by arguing that the reduction of suffering is morally more important thanthe promotion of happiness, and that most of us greatly underestimate the force of the duty to prevent suffering. L As the first systematic book-length inquiry into the moral significance of suffering, Suffering and Moral Responsibility makes an important contribution to moral philosophy and political theory, and will interest specialists in each of these areas.

A companion volume to Free Will: a Philosophical Study, this new anthology collects influential essays on free will, including both well-known contemporary classics and exciting recent work.