Bücher der Reihe Studies in Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy

Seeking a way out of today's bewildering rush of rights claims, Tara Smith offers here a systematic account of the nature and foundations of rights. The book shows what political freedom is and demonstrates why it should be protected by rights.

Is government justified? This question is central to political philosophy. These essays address the question of political authority, using up-to-date analytical tools such as game and decision theory and hindsight provided by history since the classic discussions of this question.

This volume critically examines the Rawlsian ideal of a supposedly neutral political theory as a justification for contemporary constitutional democracies.

'It is rare that a philosopher addresses a topic that is at once of vital interest to non-philosophers and philosophers alike.'-CONCERNED PHILOSOPHERS FOR PEACE NEWSLETTER

A comprehensive anthology on homosexuality. It explores historical conceptions of homosexuality, homosexual identity, and a variety of public policy issues, ranging from gay marriage to military service. It also examines the issues from ethical, religious and scientific perspectives.

Responds to recent assaults on liberal theory by proposing a "critical moral liberalism". This text sets forth the basic arguments for the liberal moral obligation to maximize people's ability to govern their own lives, and for the conception that the good life goes with this.

Barry L. Gan's Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction introduces readers to myths about the violence taken for granted in our daily lives, and advocates for more principled, nonviolent action on moral, ethical and philosophical grounds.

Tracing the influences of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel that gave rise to Marx's thought, Kain presents the development of, and tension between, concepts such as freedom and community, and sovereignty and rights. He also examines the relative strengths of social and political theory.

Moral Thinking is critical of mainstream academic ethics for being pretty nearly stuck on Kant and Mill, for neglecting nonviolence (Gandhi and King), for nearly neglecting the women's movement (it is not yet central to most ethics texts and courses), for largely neglecting the anti-racism movement (also marginal in academic.

Peter French examines the world of the western, one in which death is annihilation, the culmination of life, and there is nothing else. In that world he finds alternatives to Judeo-Christian traditions that dominate our ethical theories, alternatives that also attack the views of the most prominent ethicists of the past three centuries.

A collection of 15 essays which discuss the nature and limits of moral reasoning. It argues that moral philosophy can subvert received opinion and replace it with something better. Issues such as euthanasia, the rights of animals, privacy and affirmative action are discussed.

An examination of the United States' responses to global warming negotiations through an ethical lens. The text concludes that many of the United States' positions in global climate change negotiations are ethically bankrupt no matter what ethical theory is used in the analysis.

This collection brings together fourteen contributions by authors from around the globe. Each of the contributions engages with questions about how local and global bioethical issues are made to be comparable, in the hope of redressing basic needs and demands for justice. These works demonstrate the significant conceptual contributions that can be made through feminists' attention to debates in a range of interrelated fields, especially as they formulate appropriate responses to developments in medical technology, global economics, population shifts, and poverty.

This work sets out to expose the flaws in standard communitarian and liberal democratic theory, focusing on the works of Charles Taylor, John Rawls, and Jurgen Habermas. It articulates a concept of "complex citizenship" that recognises citizens' responsibilities beyond state borders.

People punished by law are treated in ways that we consider immoral in other contexts. This text develops a theory of punishment that, instead of justifying it on the basis of deterrence or retribution, constructs in as analogous to individual self-defence.