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This title was first published in 2003. What does it take to be a person of integrity? Could those who commit morally horrendous acts be persons of integrity? Is personal integrity compatible with the kinds of ambivalence and self-doubt characteristic of fragile selves and ordinary lives? This text examines the centrality of integrity in relation to a variety of philosophical and psychological concerns that impinge upon the ethical life. Relating integrity to many standard issues in philosophical and moral psychology - such as self-deception, weakness of will, hypocrisy and relationships - the authors present a comprehensive and accessible study of integrity and its types. Drawing on contemporary work in moral and philosophical psychology, ethics, theories of the self and feminist thought, this book develops an account of integrity as a fundamental virtue - as something that is central to all our lives.
Conventional philosophical wisdom holds that no agent can invoke its own moral integrity -- no agent can invoke fidelity to its deepest ethical commitments -- as an independent moral consideration. This is because moral integrity simply consists in doing what is, all-things-considered, the right thing. Integrity argues that this conventional wisdom is mistaken with regard to individual agents, but is especially misguided with regard to liberal democracies as collective agents. Even more than individual persons, liberal democracies as collective agents often face integrity considerations of independent moral force, affecting the moral status of actual political decisions. After defending this philosophical thesis, this book illustrates its practical value in thinking through a wide range of practical policy problems. These problems range from 'dirty' national security policies, through the moral status of political honours celebrating political figures of questionable integrity, to the 'clean hands' dilemmas of political operatives who enable media demagogues to scapegoat vulnerable ethnic and racial minorities.
We tend to admire people who stay true to their convictions in the face of opposition, who are not tempted to twist or withhold the truth for selfish reasons, and who seek the truth even when it means giving up their cherished views. Indeed, integrity, honesty, and truth seeking are crucial virtues on both intimate and global scales, significant in everything from our relationships to our politicians' accountability. The past forty years have witnessed a dramatic resurgence of philosophical interest in the virtues. And yet there has been surprisingly little work among philosophers aimed at helping us better understand these three truth-related virtues. Edited by philosophers Christian B. Miller and Ryan West, this interdisciplinary volume significantly advances the discussion of integrity, honesty, and truth seeking by incorporating the insights and perspectives of experts in philosophy, law, communication and rhetorical studies, theology, psychology, history, and education. Each of the volume's three sections is devoted to one virtue, and comprises a conceptual chapter about the nature of the virtue in question, an application chapter that explores the virtue's central role in an area of human life, and a developmental chapter covering some of the ways people can foster the virtue. Additionally, the volume addresses experimental work on honest and dishonest behavior, one of the fastest growing and most important research areas in the field of moral psychology today. Every reader will come away from this volume with a deepened knowledge of and appreciation for the essential roles of these three virtues in our world, and rich resources for developing and sustaining them in life.
There are things that can be done and are done to life on earth (whether it be human, animal or plant life) which, even if they do not involve or produce any suffering, are still considered morally wrong by a large proportion of the public. Such things include changing the nature of living beings by means of genetic engineering in order to enhance their health, or, more likely with animals and plants, their utility, or impairing their ability to live autonomously, or unduly instrumentalizing them. Yet many scientists are puzzled about the unwillingness of the public to feel much enthusiasm about a technology that, in their view, promises great benefits to humans and does not seem to cause more harm to animals than other practices which most of us do not question at all. In this book Michael Hauskeller takes public fears seriously and offers the idea of 'biological integrity' as a clarifying principle which can then be analyzed to show that seemingly irrational public concerns about genetic engineering are not so irrational after all and that a philosophically sound justification of those concerns can indeed be given.
Virtue ethics has emerged as a distinct field within moral theory - whether as an alternative account of right action or as a conception of normativity which departs entirely from the obligatoriness of morality - and has proved itself invaluable to many aspects of contemporary applied ethics. Virtue ethics now flourishes in philosophy, sociology and theology and its applications extend to law, politics and bioethics. "The Handbook of Virtue Ethics" brings together leading international scholars to provide an overview of the field. Each chapter summarizes and assesses the most important work on a particular topic and sets this work in the context of historical developments. Taking a global approach by embracing a variety of major cultural traditions along with the Western, the "Handbook" maps the emergence of virtue ethics and provides a framework for future developments.
This ground-breaking Research Handbook showcases the value, uniqueness, versatility, and holistic character of organisational integrity. Bringing together diverse perspectives from a wide range of expert contributors, it not only provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of the field, but also charts exciting new directions for future research.
Responsibility for future generations is easily postulated in the abstract but it is much more difficult to set it to work in the concrete. It requires some changes in individual and institutional attitudes that are in opposition to what has been called the "systems variables" of industrial society: individual freedom, consumerism, and equality. The Politics of Sustainability from Philosophical Perspectives seeks to examine the motivational and institutional obstacles standing in the way of a consistent politics of sustainability and to look for strategies to overcome them. It argues that though there have been significant changes in individual and especially collective attitudes to growth, intergenerational solidarity and nature preservation, it is far from certain whether these will be sufficient to encourage politicians into giving sustainable policies priority over other legitimate concerns. Having a philosophical approach as its main focus, the volume is at the same time interdisciplinary in combining political, psychological, ecological and economic analyses. This book will be a contribution to the joint effort to meet the theoretical and practical challenges posed by climate change and other impending global perils and will be of interest to students of environmental studies, applied ethics and environmental psychology.
This collection of innovative approaches to social work placements offers hope in the current climate of cuts to services and over-regulation. The international contributions offer practical guidance and challenge conventional approaches to placement finding, teaching and assessment in field education.
A growing number of higher education institutions in Asia are now integrating ethics courses in their curricula. But the challenge remains to develop courses that can effectively reach their objectives, and to create and use teaching materials appropriate to the particular profile of the students and executives in different regions and cultures. In this context, enhancing awareness for ethical dilemmas, proposing frameworks and models to help managers handle difficult choices and demanding decisions - while not being moralistic and imposing values - , and presenting alternative approaches through recent and relevant cases are the main objectives of this book. It examines teaching methods, learning tools and pedagogical methods effective in the teaching of ethics within the particular context of the rich diversity of Asian cultures, and discusses ethics courses curricula, aiming at developing the capacity to deal with a number of issues such as corruption, intellectual property protection, whistle blowing and consumer rights. The relevance and limits of Asian philosophical and spiritual traditions and how their underlying values can be a meaningful aspect in the teaching of ethics to managers and business leaders are explored, as are the benefits and limits of corporate codes of conduct and ways to enhance their effectiveness. A similar approach is taken to the introduction of “oaths” and “ethics pledges” among business students, which has been promoted in some business schools.
Working Virtue is the first substantial collective study of virtue theory and contemporary moral problems. Leading figures in ethical theory and applied ethics discuss topics in bioethics, professional ethics, ethics of the family, law, interpersonal ethics, and the emotions. Virtue ethics is centrally concerned with character traits or virtues and vices such as courage (cowardice), kindness (heartlessness), and generosity (stinginess). These character traits must be looked to in any attempt to understand which particular actions are right or wrong and how we ought to live our lives. As a theoretical approach, virtue ethics has made an impressive comeback in relatively recent history, both posing an alternative to, and, in some ways, complementing well-known theoretical stances such as utilitarianism and deontology. Yet there is still very little material available that presents virtue-ethical approaches to practical contemporary moral problems, such as what we owe distant strangers, our parents, or even non-human animals. This book fills the gap by dealing with these and other pressing moral problems in a clear and theoretically nuanced manner. The contributors offer a variety of perspectives, including pluralistic, eudaimonistic, care-theoretical, Chinese, comparative, and stoic. This variety allows the reader to appreciate not only the wide range of topics for which a virtue-ethical approach may be fitting, but also the distinctive ways in which such an approach may be manifested.