Author : Ferdinand David Schoeman
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 370 pages
File Size : 31,63 MB
Release : 1987
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780521339513
An examination of the responsibility individuals have for their actions and characters.
Author : John Sabini
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 186 pages
File Size : 34,74 MB
Release : 1998-09-10
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 019535284X
In their new book, Emotion, Character, and Responsibility, John Sabini and Maury Silver examine a conflict in the way that psychologists, philosophers, and ordinary people think about character. Most of us share an intuition that emotions are central to who we are and the characters we have, even though emotions are unchosen. Yet we also share the intuition that action, choice, and responsibility are what count about our characters. This book deals with this conflict by exploring the relations between the chosen and unchosen, moral and nonmoral, in sincerity, loyalty, sympathy, shame, guilt, and embarrassment as they affect our characters. The conflict is resolved by finding an aesthetic as well as moral basis of character. Along the way the authors consider questions such as can one truly avow ones feelings and still be insincere? What, if anything, is lacking in the Star Trek character Mr. Spock? Why is loyalty toward particular people and not people in general a duty? Is it a good idea for guilt to replace shame? How can we describe genuine self-deception without relying on unconscious knowledge? The book ends with the radical proposal that some of the emotions do not exist, at least not in the way that motives exist. We will not find them on any present or future brain scan. And yet, the authors argue, emotions matter.
Author : Christopher Avery
Publisher :
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 13,96 MB
Release : 2016-09-15
Category : Leadership
ISBN : 9780997747201
The responsibility process is a natural mental pattern that helps you process thoughts about taking or avoiding responsibility. How you navigate it determines whether you are leading toward meaningful results or just marking time. This book gives you precision tools, practices, and leadership truths to navigate the responsibility process and lead yourself and others to freedom, power, and choice. It provides abundant tools, practices, and wisdom for taking ownership, solving problems, and developing your consciousness as a leader.
Author : Becca Puglisi
Publisher : JADD Publishing
Page : 541 pages
File Size : 21,55 MB
Release : 2019-02-19
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0999296353
The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 56 new entries! One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much. If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes: • Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for over 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions • A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them • Advice on what should be done before drafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent • Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues • And much more! The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.
Author : Iskra Fileva
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 489 pages
File Size : 43,34 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0199357714
This collection features 26 new essays on character from first-rate scholars in philosophy, psychology, economics, and law. The essays are elegantly written and combine forceful argumentation with original ideas on a wide range of questions, such as: "Is Aristotle's theory of character a moral theory?," "Are character traits in tension with personal autonomy", "How do traits differ from mental disorders?," "What is the role of gossip in character attribution?," and "Can businessmen be virtuous?" The chapters are organized thematically into 5 sections, each prefaced by its own special introduction. In the introductions, the editor brings out often unexpected connections among different lines of argument pursued by the authors and raises important questions for further discussion. The collection as a whole offers students of character a unique opportunity to engage with some of the best contemporary work on the topic.
Author : Ellen Frankel Paul
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 357 pages
File Size : 35,29 MB
Release : 1999-06-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0521654505
The essays in this volume address questions about responsibility that arise in moral philosophy and legal theory. Some analyze different theories of causality and human agency, scouting for satisfactory resolutions to the controversies of free will and determinism, while some look at the problem of responsibility in the legal realm. Others explore libertarian views about political freedom and accountability, while still others examine the notion of partial or divided responsibility, or the relationship between responsibility and the emotions.
Author : Christine Tappolet
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 245 pages
File Size : 22,20 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0199696519
The emotions we experience are crucial to who we are, to what we think, and to what we do. But what are emotions, exactly, and how do they relate to agency? The aim of this book is to spell out an account of emotions, which is grounded on analogies between emotions and sensory experiences, and to explore the implications of this account for our understanding of human agency. The central claim is that emotions consist in perceptual experiences of values, such as the fearsome, the disgusting or the admirable. A virtue of this account is that it affords a better grasp of a variety of interconnected phenomena, such as motivation, values, responsibility and reason-responsiveness. In the process of exploring the implications of the Perceptual Theory of emotions, several claims are proposed. First, emotions normally involve desires that set goals, but they can be contemplative in that they can occur without any motivation. Second, evaluative judgements can be understood in terms of appropriate emotions in so far as appropriateness is taken to consist in correct representation. Third, by contrast with what Strawsonian theories hold, the concept of moral responsibility is not response-dependent, but the relationship between emotions and moral responsibility is mediated by values. Finally, in so far as emotions are perceptions of values, they can be considered to be perceptions of practical reasons, so that on certain conditions, acting on the basis of one's emotions can consist in responding to one's reasons.
Author : Lucas Swaine
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 253 pages
File Size : 50,73 MB
Release : 2020-02-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 019008765X
Autonomy is one of the most foundational conditions of liberalism, a political philosophy that prizes individual freedom. Today, we still grapple with autonomy's value and its implications. How important is autonomy for a good life? Should people try to achieve autonomy for themselves? And does autonomy support healthy citizenship in free societies? In Ethical Autonomy, Lucas Swaine offers new and compelling answers to these key philosophical and political questions. Swaine charts the evolution of autonomy from ancient Greece to modern democratic life. Illuminating the history of the concept and its development within political theory, he focuses on autonomy at its most basic level: personal autonomy. Swaine methodically exposes the dark side of personal autonomy, pinpointing its deficiencies at both theoretical and practical levels. In so doing, he provides a powerful critique of the very idea of personal autonomy, arguing that it is so underspecified and indeterminate that it falls apart. Moreover, Swaine suggests, personally autonomous individuals devolve and degrade their moral agency, often at others' expense, and in many cases with shocking real-world consequences. Swaine's solution to problems of personal autonomy is to develop a new model of individual-level autonomy, which he calls "ethical autonomy." A form of self-rule integrating moral character and grounded in principles of liberty of conscience, ethical autonomy incorporates restraints on an autonomous individual's imagination, deliberation, and will. It supports the central commitments of liberalism and enhances active and astute forms of democratic citizenship. This novel understanding of autonomy stresses the values of freedom, toleration, respect, individual rights, limited government, and the rightful rule of law.
Author : Tracy Isaacs
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 19,2 MB
Release : 2011-01-31
Category : Law
ISBN : 1139497316
Ideas of collective responsibility challenge the doctrine of individual responsibility that is the dominant paradigm in law and liberal political theory. But little attention is given to the consequences of holding groups accountable for wrongdoing. Groups are not amenable to punishment in the way that individuals are. Can they be punished – and if so, how – or are other remedies available? The topic crosses the borders of law, philosophy and political science, and in this volume specialists in all three areas contribute their perspectives. They examine the limits of individual criminal liability in addressing atrocity, the meanings of punishment and responsibility, the distribution of group punishment to a group's members, and the means by which collective accountability can be expressed. In doing so, they reflect on the legacy of the Nuremberg Trials, on the philosophical understanding of collective responsibility, and on the place of collective accountability in international political relations.
Author : John Kekes
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 21,70 MB
Release : 2014-02-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0801471303
"Evil is the most serious of our moral problems. All over the world cruelty, greed, prejudice, and fanaticism ruin the lives of countless victims. Outrage provokes outrage. Millions nurture seething hatred of real or imagined enemies, revealing savage and destructive tendencies in human nature. Understanding this challenges our optimistic illusions about the effectiveness of reason and morality in bettering human lives. But abandoning these illusions is vitally important because they are obstacles to countering the threat of evil. The aim of this book is to explain why people act in these ways and what can be done about it."—John KekesThe first part of this book is a detailed discussion of six horrible cases of evil: the Albigensian Crusade of about 1210; Robespierre's Terror of 1793–94; Franz Stangl, who commanded a Nazi death camp in 1943–44; the 1969 murders committed by Charles Manson and his "family"; the "dirty war" conducted by the Argentinean military dictatorship of the late 1970s; and the activities of a psychopath named John Allen, who recorded reminiscences in 1975. John Kekes includes these examples not out of sensationalism, but rather to underline the need to hold vividly in our minds just what evil is. The second part shows why, in Kekes's view, explanations of evil inspired by Christianity and the Enlightenment fail to account for these cases and then provides an original explanation of evil in general and of these instances of it in particular.
