Actual Ethics

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Jun 19, 2006 - Philosophy
Actual Ethics offers a moral defense of the 'classical liberal' political tradition and applies it to several of today's vexing moral and political issues. James Otteson argues that a Kantian conception of personhood and an Aristotelian conception of judgment are compatible and even complementary. He shows why they are morally attractive, and perhaps most controversially, when combined, they imply a limited, classical liberal political state. Otteson then addresses several contemporary problems - wealth and poverty, public education, animal welfare, and affirmative action - and shows how each can be plausibly addressed within the Kantian, Aristotelian and classical liberal framework. Written in clear, engaging, and jargon-free prose, Actual Ethics will give students and general audiences an overview of a powerful and rich moral and political tradition that they might not otherwise consider.

From inside the book

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
5
Section 3
9
Section 4
22
Section 5
27
Section 6
41
Section 7
45
Section 8
57
Section 20
174
Section 21
192
Section 22
199
Section 23
201
Section 24
217
Section 25
243
Section 26
250
Section 27
266

Section 9
68
Section 10
97
Section 11
102
Section 12
119
Section 13
121
Section 14
126
Section 15
129
Section 16
130
Section 17
155
Section 18
159
Section 19
171
Section 28
278
Section 29
281
Section 30
291
Section 31
297
Section 32
302
Section 33
310
Section 34
312
Section 35
319
Section 36
327
Section 37
334
Section 38
338

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 289 - ... that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order...
Page 119 - These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise.
Page 289 - That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
Page 17 - Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is of every man against every man.
Page 182 - ... seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board; he does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it.
Page 6 - Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
Page 37 - That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
Page 289 - ... yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind...

About the author (2006)

James Otteson is associate professor in and chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. The author of Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life, he has held research fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, at the Centre for the Study of Scottish Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, and at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, Ohio. He has also received grants from the University of Alabama, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Earhart Foundation.

Bibliographic information