You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Essays concerned with fundamental issues of rational commitment and social justice to which Kavka devoted his work as a philosopher.
In recent years serious attempts have been made to systematize and develop the moral and political themes of great philosophers of the past. Kant, Locke, Marx, and the classical utilitarians all have their current defenders and arc taken seriously as expositors of sound moral and political views. It is the aim of this book to introduce Hobbes into this select group by presenting a plausible moral and political theory inspired by Leviathan. Using the techniques of analytic philosophy and elementary game theory, the author develops a Hobbesian argument that justifies the liberal State and reconciles the rights and interests of rational individuals with their obligations. Hobbes's case against ...
This volume examines the complex and vitally important ethical questions connected with the deployment of nuclear weapons and their use as a deterrent. A number of the essays contained here have already established themselves as penetrating and significant contributions to the debate on nuclear ethics. They have been revised to bring out their unity and coherence, and are integrated with new essays. The books exceptional rigor and clarity make it valuable whether the reader's concern with nuclear ethics is professional or personal. Part I explores the morality of nuclear deterrrence from each of the two dominant traditions in moral philosophy, deontology and consequentialism, and points out a number of interesting ethical dilemmas. Part II criticizes a variety of alternatives to deterrence - unilateral nuclear disarmament, world government, strategic defense against ballistic missiles, and nuclear coercion - and argues for mutual nuclear disarmament as a realistic and desirable long-run alternative.
This book is the most comprehensive, rigorous critique of contemporary Hobbesian contractarianism as expounded in the work of Jean Hampton, Gregory Kavka, and David Gauthier. Professor Kraus argues that the attempts by these three philosophers to use Hobbes to answer current political and moral questions fail. The reasons why they fail are related to fundamental problems intrinsic to Hobbesian contractarianism: first, the problem of collective action arising out of the tension in Hobbes' theory between individual and collective rationality; second, the classical problem of explaining the normative force of hypothetical action, a problem that can be traced to the conflicting strategies of hypothetical justification found in Rawls' and Hobbes' theories. Given the deep interest in Hobbesian contractarianism among philosophers, political theorists, game theorists in economics and political science, and legal theorists, this book is likely to attract wide attention and infuse new life into the contractarian debate.
"Papers from a conference held at Bowling Green State University in the fall of 1988" -- T.p. verso.
This major study of Hobbes' political philosophy draws on recent developments in game and decision theory to explore whether the thrust of the argument in Leviathan, that it is in the interests of the people to create a ruler with absolute power, can be shown to be cogent. Professor Hampton has written a book of vital importance to political philosophers, political and social scientists, and intellectual historians.
Newcomb's problem is a controversial paradox of decision theory. It is easily explained and easily understood, and there is a strong chance that most of us have actually faced it in some form or other. And yet it has proven as thorny and intractable a puzzle as much older and better-known philosophical problems of consciousness, scepticism and fatalism. It brings into very sharp and focused disagreement several long-standing philosophical theories on practical rationality, on the nature of free will, and on the direction and analysis of causation. This volume introduces readers to the nature of Newcomb's problem, and ten chapters by leading scholars present the most recent debates around the problem and analyse its ramifications for decision theory, metaphysics, philosophical psychology and political science. Their chapters highlight the status of Newcomb's problem as a live and continuing issue in modern philosophy.
Equality and Liberty: Analysing Rawls and Nozick is an indispensable source for those seriously interested in some rigorous assessments of the ideas of America's two most popular political philosophers. The essays in this volume cover a wide range of topics, some engaging each other in their analyses of particular Rawlsian or Nozickian themes. This collection of recent essays brings the student up-to-date concerning some of the more recent developments and assessments of Rawlsian and Nozickian ideas.
The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.--CHOICE
This reader introduces students of philosophy and politics to the contemporary critical literature on the classical social contract theorists: Thomas Hobbes (1599-1697), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Twelve thoughtfully selected essays guide students through the texts, familiarizing them with key elements of the theory, while at the same time introducing them to current scholarly controversies. A bibliography of additional work is provided. The classical social contract theorists represent one of the two or three most important modern traditions in political thought. Their ideas dominated political debates in Europe and North America in the 17th and 18th cent...