Ethics Matters
Description
This book covers a varied spectrum of ethical topics, ranging from the fundamental considerations regarding ethical values, to the rationale of obligation, and the ethical management of societal and personal affairs. Nicholas Rescher shows how fundamental general principles underpin the pragmatic stance we can appropriately take on questions of specific ethical detail. His work on these issues is pervaded by a certain pragmatic point of view. As the popular dictum has it, we humans come this way but once, with just a single lifetime available, to each one of us. Rescher argues that it is a matter of rational self-interest and ethical obligation to use this opportunity for doing something towards making the world a better home for ourselves and our posterity.
Reviews / Votes
"Ethics matters because persons matter, and Nicholas Rescher helpfully explains why this is so. He does so with clarity and conciseness, shedding light on the nature of persons, obligation, rationality, fairness, moral luck, collective responsibility, and morality in politics and government. His wide-ranging lucid account brings needed coherence to our understanding of matters moral and rational, and it will benefit readers from a wide range of disciplines." (Paul K. Moser, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago, author of Understanding Religious Experience.)
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Person
Nicholas Rescher is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, USA. In a productive research career extending over six decades, he has well over one hundred books to his credit. Fourteen books about Rescher's philosophy have been published in five languages.
Content
Chapter 1: Personhood.- Chapter 2: The Ethical Import Of Value Attribution.- Chapter 3: The Rational Validation Of Ethical Values.- Chapter 4: Rationality And Moral Obligation.- Chapter 5: On Compromise And Obligation.- Chapter 6: Moral Luck.- Chapter 7: Fairness Problems.- Chapter 8: On The Ethics Of Inaction.- Chapter 9: Ancestor Worship?.- Chapter 10: Distant Posterity(A Philosophical Glance Along Time's Corridor).- Chapter 11: Is There A Statute Of Limitations In Ethics?.- Chapter 12:An Ethical Paradox.- Chapter 13: Collective Responsibility.- Chapter 14: Allocating Scientific Credit.- Chapter 15: Morality In Government And Politics.- Chapter 16: Problems Of Betterment.- Chapter 17: Sovereign Immunity In Theological Ethics.- Chapter 18: Perfectibility Problems.