Many people believe that the violent and disruptive nature of war makes a military ethic impossible. The authors of this book, originally published in 1986 however, develop an ethical system that aims to control the military monster at least to some degree, rather than one that preaches to it idealistically – with little or no effect. Military ethics, they believe, must be an ethics for peacetime as well as an ethics for war, an ethics for soldiers in the field as well as an ethics for political leaders, and their book is designed to meet these needs. It presents a practical, utilitarian approach: an ethics of what is possible rather than what is ideal, drawing on real military experience and different from any other work previously published. The authors argue that both the pacifists, who claim that the horrible and ungovernable nature of war makes it morally wrong, and the realists, who believe that wars must be fought, but fought without moral scruple, are mistaken. They show that careful attention to the actual circumstances in which individual combatants function and the social institutions shaping their action allows genuine moral constraint. With its emphasis on real problems, Military Ethics will be of practical help to policy makers and military personnel at all levels, as well as being of great interest to students of applied philosophy and ethics.
One of the world's most important philosophers of mind and language, John Searle (b. 1932) is direct, combative, and intellectually ambitious. His philosophy has made fundamental and lasting contributions to how we think about speech, consciousness, knowledge, truth, and the nature of social reality. Here, with remarkable clarity, a leading authority introduces students and generalists to those contributions. Nick Fotion explains Searle's ideas in full, while also testing and exploring their implications. He first takes up Searle's philosophy of language, examining how Searle treats speech acts and thinks about the metaphorical use of language. Next, the book sketches Searle's philosophy of mind, including his claims for intentionality and for the centrality of consciousness. This discussion highlights Searle's argument that the mind possesses a subjective character that materialist explanations (including behaviorism and strong artificial intelligence) cannot contain. The author goes on to look at Searle's later writings on the construction of social reality--work that mounts a sophisticated but plainly stated case against deconstructionist, skeptical, and relativistic accounts. Concluding with general reflections on Searle's position vis-à-vis ontology and epistemology, this book is the first to assess and identify common themes and approaches in the whole range of his extensive thought. In doing so, it presents Searle's extremely influential work for the first time as a coherent philosophy.
The ethics of military action are at the heart of political debate in the West today - this fascinating book explores the philosophical implications of and for this hugely topical contemporary debate. Fotion gives a clear account of just war theory, presenting it as a useful device in helping us make decisions about what we should do when war appears on the horizon.
This book presents a broad and new theory of theory formation in ethics. There are many existing theories, and more could be generated, but most thinkers of theory formation have a narrow view of what a theory of ethics should be like. They favor certain kinds of grand theories that generate various ethical rules and principles. In fact these grand theories allegedly do so much work that they give the appearance of being super-theories (or strong theories). Many theory creators think that it is possible to create strong theories, and that they themselves have created such a theory. Anti-theorists scoff at these claims. In effect, then, the argument between the two sides is not one of theory versus anti-theory but of grand or strong theory versus anti-grand or strong theory. Nick Fotion argues that once a broader view of theory is accepted, it is easier to see that there really is no serious conflict between theorists and anti-theorists. In principle, both sides, if they overcome their addiction to thinking in terms of grand, strong theory formation, can accept a role for theories in ethics. Theories in ethics can be either grand or local in nature. Provided theory creators and users don't expect theories to performs all kinds of impossible tasks (e.g., to deal with all of our ethical problems and be so fully justified that only one theory can be accepted as being correct) it is easier to accept them. It is also easier to accept the idea that a theorist might very well appeal to more than one theory to help him or her deal with whatever ethical issues bother.
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