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A New Science of Politics
Eric Voegelin is famous as a philosopher of history and a as one of the most eminent political scientists of the 20th century. His most fundamental work on political theory, the "New Science of Politics, is nowadays considered a classic in ist field. While the "New Science" has always been a very controversial book, ist critics have hardly ever taken the pain to pinpoint the weaknesses they condemmed Voegelins book for. There is, however, one exception: Only shortly after the appearance of Voegelins "New Science" in 1954, Hans Kelsen has written a most detailed reply to this book of his former student. This reply, which was known to Voegelin and is mentioned in his autobiography, is now bein...
Materials Matter
The products we purchase and use are assembled from a wide range of naturally occurring and manufactured materials. But too often we create hazards for the ecosystem and human health as we mine, process, distribute, use, and dispose of these materials. Until recently, most research has focused on the waste end of material cycles. This book argues that the safest and least costly point at which to avoid environmental damage is when materials are first designed and selected for use in industrial production. Materials Matter presents convincing evidence that we can use fewer materials and eliminate the use of many toxic chemicals by focusing directly on material (chemical) use when products are designed. It also shows how manufacturers can save money by increasing the effectiveness of material use and reducing the use of toxic chemicals. It advocates new directions for the material sciences and government policies on materials. And it argues that manufacturers, suppliers, and customers need to set more socially responsible policies for products and services to achieve higher environmental and health goals.
Transitioning to Sustainable Life on Land
Sustainable Life on Land, the fifteenth UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 15), calls for the protection, restoration and promotion of the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems. Among others, it requires societies to sustainably manage forests, halt and reverse land degradation, combat desertification, and halt biodiversity loss. Despite the fact that protection of terrestrial ecosystems is on the rise worldwide and forest loss has slowed, the recent IPBES report concluded that “nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history”. Consequently, the United Nations General Assembly recently declared 2021–2030 the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. There is no dou...
Biotechnology and the Integrity of 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.
The Biotechnology Debate
This book grounds deliberative democratic theory in a more refined understanding of deliberative practice, in particular when dealing with intractable moral disagreement regarding novel technologies. While there is an ongoing, vibrant debate about the theoretical merits of deliberative democracy on the one hand, and more recently, empirical studies of specific deliberative exercises have been carried out, these two discussions fail to speak to one another. Debates about animal and plant biotechnology are examined as a paradigmatic case for intractable disagreement in today’s pluralistic societies. This examination reveals that the disagreements in this debate are multi-faceted and multi-di...
The Primate Origins of Human Nature
The Primate Origins of Human Nature (Volume 3 in The Foundations of Human Biology series) blends several elements from evolutionary biology as applied to primate behavioral ecology and primate psychology, classical physical anthropology and evolutionary psychology of humans. However, unlike similar books, it strives to define the human species relative to our living and extinct relatives, and thus highlights uniquely derived human features. The book features a truly multi-disciplinary, multi-theory, and comparative species approach to subjects not usually presented in textbooks focused on humans, such as the evolution of culture, life history, parenting, and social organization.
The Origin of Oughtness
How come we ought to do things? Current metanormative debates often suffer from the fact that authors implicitly use adequacy conditions not shared by their opponents. This leads to an unsatisfying dialectical gridlock (Chang): One author accuses her opponents of not being able to account for stuff she judges essential, but the opponents do not think this to be a major flaw. In an attempt to meet the problem of gridlock head-on, the current investigation approaches oughtness differently. I start with the introduction of a grounding framework for thinking about oughtness that allows a lucid presentation of the views on the market. It soon becomes clear that one necessary part of any plausible...
Kant's 'Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals'
In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant portrays the supreme moral principle as an unconditional imperative that applies to all of us because we freely choose to impose upon ourselves a law of pure practical reason. Morality is revealed to be a matter of autonomy. Today, this approach to ethical theory is as perplexing, controversial and inspiring as it was in 1785, when the Groundwork was first published. The essays in this volume, by international Kant scholars and moral philosophers, discuss Kant's philosophical development and his rejection of earlier moral theories, the role of happiness and inclination in the Groundwork, Kant's moral metaphysics and theory of value, and his attempt to justify the categorical imperative as a principle of freedom. They reflect the approach of several schools of interpretation and illustrate the lively diversity of Kantian ethics today.
From Value to Rightness
This book develops an original version of act-consequentialism. It argues that act-consequentialists should adopt a subjective criterion of rightness. The book develops new arguments which strongly suggest that, according to the best version of act-consequentialism, the rightness of actions depends on expected rather than actual value. Its findings go beyond the debate about consequentialism and touch on important debates in normative ethics and metaethics. The distinction between criterion of rightness and decision procedures addresses how, why, and in which sense moral theories must be implemented by ordinary persons. The discussion of the rationales of "ought" implies "can" leads to the d...
Moral and Political Reasoning in Environmental Practice
Essays showing how environmental philosophy can have an impact on the world by integrating abstract reasoning with actual environmental practice.
