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In most liberal democracies for example, the central bank is as independent as the supreme court, yet deals with a wide range of economic, social, and political issues. How do these public servants make these policy decisions? What normative principles inform their judgments? In The Machinery of Government, Joseph Heath attempts to answer these questions. He looks to the actual practice of public administration to see how normative questions are addressed. More broadly, he attempts to provide the outlines of a "philosophy of the executive" by taking seriously the claim to political authority of the most neglected of the three branches of the state.
In four new and nine previously published essays, Joseph Heath provides a compelling new framework for thinking about the moral obligations of economic actors. The "market failures" approach to business ethics that he develops provides the basis for a unified theory of business ethics, corporate law, economic regulation, and the welfare state.
The co-author of the internationally bestselling The Rebel Sell brings us "slow politics": promoting slow thought, slow deliberation and slow debate. Over the last twenty years, the political systems of the western world have become increasingly divided--not between right and left but between crazy and non-crazy. What’s more, the crazies seem to be gaining the upper hand. Rational thought cannot prevail in the current social and media environment, where elections are won by appealing to voters’ hearts rather than their minds. The rapid-fire pace of modern politics, the hypnotic repetition of daily news items and even the multitude of visual sources of information all make it difficult fo...
"With the incredible popularity of Michael Moore's books and movies, and the continuing success of anti-consumer critiques like ADBUSTERS and Naomi Klien's NO LOGO, it is hard to ignore the growing tide of resistance to the corporate-dominated world. But do these vocal opponents of the status quo offer us a real political alternative?" "In this work of cultural criticism, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter shatter the central myth of radical political, economic and cultural thinking. The idea of a counterculture, a world outside the consumer-dominated one that encompasses us, pervades everything from the anti-globalization movement to feminism and environmentalism. And the idea that mocking the system, or trying to 'jam' it so it will collapse, they argue, is not only counterproductive but has helped to create the very consumer society that radicals oppose." "In a blend of pop culture, history and philosophical analysis, Heath and Potter offer a startling, clear picture of what a concern for social justice might look like without the confusion of the counterculture obsession with being different."--Book jacket.
For centuries, philosophers have been puzzled by the fact that people often respect moral obligations as a matter of principle, setting aside considerations of self-interest. This text shows how rule-following can be understood as an essential element of rational action.
In this collection of provocative essays, Joseph Heath provides a compelling new framework for thinking about the moral obligations that private actors in a market economy have toward each other and to society. In a sharp break with traditional approaches to business ethics, Heath argues that the basic principles of corporate social responsibility are already implicit in the institutional norms that structure both marketplace competition and the modern business corporation. In four new and nine previously published essays, Heath articulates the foundations of a "market failures" approach to business ethics. Rather than bringing moral concerns to bear upon economic activity as a set of foreig...
Ethics for Capitalists offers a powerful new statement of the Market Failures Approach to business ethics. While the competitive context of the market economy provides economic actors greater freedom to pursue their interests, it also imposes moral constraints on the range of strategies they may employ. The pursuit of profit must be consistent with the overall objective of market institutions, which is to promote efficiency in the production and allocation of goods and services. Ethics for Capitalists draws out the implications of this view for business strategy, corporate governance, managerial authority, and shareholder primacy. The result is a philosophically rigorous, comprehensive approach to business ethics that will be foundational for all future reflection in the field.
Economists have a bad reputation. Not only do they assume that everyone is self-interested and amoral, they are almost always cheerleaders for the free market. As a result, most people who do not already share their beliefs ignore everything that economists have to say. This is a problem. Even among the highly educated, economics is a minefield of fallacies and errors. Among those who know little about the subject—a group that includes the average taxpayer and consumer, as well as most journalists, political activists and politicians—almost every widely held belief is false. The level of economic illiteracy is stunning. Filthy Lucre aims to level the playing field and, in this time of en...
In this book Joseph Heath brings Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action into dialogue with the most sophisticated articulation of the instrumental conception of practical rationality-modern rational choice theory. Heath begins with an overview of Habermas's action theory and his critique of decision and game theory. He then offers an alternative to Habermas's use of speech act theory to explain social order and outlines a multidimensional theory of rational action that includes norm-governed action as a specific type. In the second part of the book Heath discusses the more philosophical dimension of Habermas's conception of practical rationality. He criticizes Habermas's attempt to introduce a universalization principle governing moral discourse, as well as his criteria for distinguishing between moral and ethical problems. Heath offers an alternative account of the level of convergence exhibited by moral argumentation, drawing on game-theoretic models to specify the burden of proof that the theory of communicative action and discourse must assume.
There is widespread agreement that we are obliged to do something about climate change, but considerable disagreement when it comes to explaining why we must do something. What remains most controversial, in other words, is not climate change policy, but rather the philosophical foundations of climate change policy. This book criticizes the most popular proposals that have been made to supply these foundations. It argues, instead, that our current actions, which involve the relatively unrestricted emissions of greenhouse cases, is a case of simple unfairness. It is an arrangement under which are taking out more than we are putting into the system of cooperation that extends out in time to include future generations.