Product Description
In March 2009, RAND convened a conference on the role and perspectives of corporate chief ethics and compliance officers (CECOs). The discussions featured input from current and former officers and other stakeholders in the nonprofit sector, academia, and government. Themes included the unique position of CECOs in corporate management, the relevance of ethics and culture as a prophylaxis to malfeasance, and the importance of open communication and employee reporting in guarding against fraud and misconduct. ... Read more

Product Description
Christian Political Ethics brings together leading Christian scholars of diverse theological and ethical perspectives--Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anabaptist--to address fundamental questions of state and civil society, international law and relations, the role of the nation, and issues of violence and its containment. Representing a unique fusion of faith-centered ethics and social science, the contributors bring into dialogue their own varying Christian understandings with a range of both secular ethical thought and other religious viewpoints from Judaism, Islam, and Confucianism. They explore divergent Christian views of state and society--and the limits of each. They grapple with the tensions that can arise within Christianity over questions of patriotism, civic duty, and loyalty to one's nation, and they examine Christian responses to pluralism and relativism, globalization, and war and peace. Revealing the striking pluralism inherent to Christianity itself, this pioneering volume recasts the meanings of Christian citizenship and civic responsibility, and raises compelling new questions about civil disobedience, global justice, and Christian justifications for waging war as well as spreading world peace. It brings Christian political ethics out of the churches and seminaries to engage with today's most vexing and complex social issues. The contributors are Michael Banner, Nigel Biggar, Joseph Boyle, Michael G. Cartwright, John A. Coleman, S.J., John Finnis, Theodore J. Koontz, David Little, Richard B. Miller, James W. Skillen, and Max L. Stackhouse. ... Read more

Product Description
This edited book provides an interdisciplinary, state-of-the-art overview of the growing phenomenon of private military companies. ... Read more

Product Description
How should politicians act? When should they try to lead public opinion and when should they follow it? Should politicians see themselves as experts, whose opinions have greater authority than other people's, or as participants in a common dialogue with ordinary citizens? When do virtues like toleration and willingness to compromise deteriorate into moral weakness? In this innovative work, Andrew Sabl answers these questions by exploring what a democratic polity needs from its leaders. He concludes that there are systematic, principled reasons for the holders of divergent political offices or roles to act differently.Sabl argues that the morally committed civil rights activist, the elected representative pursuing legislative results, and the grassroots organizer determined to empower ordinary citizens all have crucial democratic functions. But they are different functions, calling for different practices and different qualities of political character. To make this case, he draws on political theory, moral philosophy, leadership studies, and biographical examples ranging from Everett Dirksen to Ella Baker, Frances Willard to Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr. to Joe McCarthy.Ruling Passions asks democratic theorists to pay more attention to the "governing pluralism" that characterizes a diverse, complex democracy. It challenges moral philosophy to adapt its prescriptions to the real requirements of democratic life, to pay more attention to the virtues of political compromise and the varieties of human character. And it calls on all democratic citizens to appreciate "democratic constancy": the limited yet serious standard of ethical character to which imperfect democratic citizens may rightly hold their leaders--and themselves. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Breath of Fresh Air
Andrew Sabl has written that most unusual of documents:a book on political theory that will be of real use to those who actually practice politics, including those of us who exercise the supreme office of citizen and voter.Facing squarely the problems set by the existence of real moral disagreements and the real contention of interests, he asks how the holders of what he calls "offices" (which others of a more sociological turn might call "roles") ought to act if the project of democratic self-rule is to be carried through. He argues -- convicingly, at least to me -- that different offices implydifferent sets of moral guidelines: that a good senator and a good community organizer are good in different ways, and that neither one can fulfill his office simply by acting out in public some version (any version) of what private ethics defines as a good person.

As a bonus, Sabl writes clearly and elegantly; Ruling Passions is a pleasure to read.A must for the scholar, the book is completely accessible to the general reader who is willing to stretch his mind just a little. ... Read more

Product Description
Plato's Utopia Recast is an illuminating reappraisal of Plato's later works, which reveals radical changes in his ethical and political theory. Christopher Bobonich examines later dialogues, with a special emphasis upon the Laws, and argues that in these late works, Plato both rethinks and revises the basic ethical and poltical positions that he held in his better-known earlier works, such as the Republic. This book will change our understanding of Plato. His controversial moral and political theory, so influential in Western thought, will henceforth be seen in a new light. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from National Catholic Reporter, published by Thomson Gale on April 7, 2006. The length of the article is 1065 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Torture around the world: governments are often more reluctant to discuss torture than to practice it.(Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever OK? A Human Rights Perspective; A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror; Torture: Religious Ethics and National Security)(Book review)
Author: Darrell Turner
Publication: National Catholic Reporter (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 7, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 42Issue: 23Page: 18(1)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
"This is an important work, especially in these times when administrative ethics are getting more attention. It is readable and timely."
--The Journal of Academic Librarianship

Since its original publication, The Responsible Administrator has become the standard resource for public administrators seeking to systematically confront and address ethical issues and incorporate them into their decision-making and management choices. In administrative ethics courses, according to the Working Group on Ethics Education of the American Society for Public Administration, the single most commonly used book is Terry Cooper's The Responsible Administrator.

In this thoroughly revised and updated fourth edition, Cooper expands on and uncovers many current issues relevant to administrative ethics. He presents a design approach to administrative ethics, emphasizing the connection between decision making and actual practice within an organization. Cooper offers new insight on postmodernism, explaining how the problems organizations now face have been intensified by postmodern conditions, and describes the relationship between ethics and the emerging principal-agent theory.The new edition also features a large number of up-to-date case studies and examples.

The theoretical framework presented in this powerful resource is clearly grounded in practice.Featured techniques help managers consider all the factors involved in a decision, ensuring that they balance professional, personal, and organizational values. The case studies and examples in this edition illustrate the techniques that work and those that don't.

The Responsible Administrator helps both experienced and novice public managers become effective decision makers, providing them with a solid understanding of the role and importance of ethics in public service-and the framework to incorporate ethical and values-based decision making in day-to-day management.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The Responsible Administrator
This text should be required for all students studying public administration, whether at the undergraduate or graduate level.It offers relevant and practical solutions to local, state, national and global problems.Students and practitioners of public administration will encounter a new landscape that informs them of how to be an active and effective citizen in the governance of the US government from all levels of government.It is simply a good read.Terry Cooper knows the importance of combining scientific and normative values in the administration of our governments.The Responsible Administrator: An Approach to Ethics for the Administrative Role

Good Review
I received this book in a timely manner.It was in good condition. The readings in it were a nice look at ethics in Public Administration.

The most thought-provoking nap I've ever taken
To countereffect the wordiness of the author, I'll keep this brief. This is a thought-provoking read, and as an administrator I will take much of this book to heart. In many respects it will be life- or at least job-altering. For that, I am very pleased.

The painful part was actually getting through the book. It is very dryly written, with pretentious language and lacking clear outline. Truly painful.

I found the first couple chapters agonizing. Then the author hit his stride and offered a lot of valuable insight. I wish it had been written in plain english rather than all the superfluous fluff. We already know you're smart: now tell us what you are trying to say.

good for the book-case
I wouldn't have read it if I didn't have too, but since I did, it was pretty good.As an administrator, I will keep this on my book-case..Ha ha.

Wanted:Administrators Who Can Juggle Responsibly
Terry L. Cooper's The Responsible Administrator will someday (if notalready) be listed by successful and respected public administrationpractitioners as one of the books that had the most influence on theircareers.Those who list it as such will probably have a well-worn copy ontheir library shelf because it is not a piece that is read through once -even very carefully, word for word - with the reader then declaring,"Now I see how it should be done."Rather, it is a book thatincreases in utility as one's experience in decision-making and workingthrough administrative ethical dilemmas increases.For this reason, itsgreatest impact will be on practitioners, as opposed to students andacademics.Nevertheless, although it is certainly realistic about, andempathetic with the day-to-day decision-making and ethical conflicts facedby public administrators, it is nonetheless theoretically thorough andacademically thoughtful.

Cooper is obviously a scholar of thephilosophical and moral issues surrounding public administration anddecision making.In addition to his own thoughtful analysis and theory, heprovides a comprehensive and thorough review of literature relating to eachitem of discussion, as well as on-point case studies that amplify theethical complexities and difficulties challenging today's administrators. Fortunately for practitioners, he is not content to conclude his treatisewith conceptual, theoretical and philosophical analysis of ethicalproblems, but suggests a design approach for dealing with both theshort-term decision-making situations and the long-term organizational,political, legal, cultural, policy and procedural issues faced byadministrators as they attempt to make balanced and ethical decisions.

The manner in which Cooper presents his case studies allows the reader tointeract and find conceptual application.Each one is "based onreality and fictionalized only slightly to protect those who wrotethem" (p. xxi), and is very illustrative and thought provokingregarding the ethical problems being discussed.However, they are alwaysleft unresolved.Cooper says, "To indicate an outcome [in each case]would diminish the experience of dilemma they are calculated to evoke"(p. xxi).This emphasizes the ultimate purpose of The ResponsibleAdministrator which "is to illuminate the ethical situation of thepublic administrator and cultivate imaginative reflection about it - not toprescribe a particular set of public service values" (p. xxi). Although the volume leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that its authorhas strong opinions and a well-established belief structure, it makes noattempt to proselytize the reader with a substantive system of moral valuesor standards for public administrators.

The premise of TheResponsible Administrator is that public administrators, in fulfillingtheir administrative responsibilities, are faced with complex and ambiguousethical issues which force them to juggle multiple compelling factors:thefacts of each situation; their own personal values and beliefs; andexternal obligations and institutional norms.Through the process ofresolving these issues in specific and concrete situations, administratorsdefine administrative responsibility and develop an operational ethic forthemselves.Over time, "this working ethic becomes the substance ofone's professional character" (p. 6).

The book focuses onproviding a method whereby a design system can be developed and utilized byadministrators to formulate their responsibility in dealing with conflict,tension, uncertainty and risk."A basic assumption of this book isthat the more we consciously address and systematically process the ethicaldimensions of decision making when we confront significant issues, the moreresponsible we become in our work as administrators.It is then that weare able to account for our conduct to superiors, the press, the courts,and the public" (p. 17). The decision-making model Cooperproposes consists of four initial steps:"defining the ethicalproblem, describing the context, identifying the range of alternativecourses of action, and projecting the probable consequences of each"(p. 245).He then prescribes stepping beyond this initial linear exerciseto the "nonlinear process of searching for a fit among severalconsiderations:moral rules, ethical principles, anticipatoryself-appraisal, and a rehearsal of defenses" (p. 245).Thus, themodel is a pragmatic leveling of the rational and behavioral playing fieldsof responsible decision making.

One chapter in The ResponsibleAdministrator is dedicated to understanding the administrative role as itrelates to the social and cultural context in which it functions.Thereinhe poses the question of how one sorts out "the priority ofobligations between those of being a citizen in a democratic society andthose associated with being a public administrator" (p. 37).This isa theme explored in even greater detail in The Spirit of PublicAdministration (1997), wherein H. George Frederickson concludes that thepublic administrator must act as a "representative citizen." Cooper suggests that the theories of Weber and Wilson regarding theseparation of politics from administration are no longer viable in apostmodern society.Today, public administrators play a substantivepolitical role and need to acknowledge their high degree of accountabilityto the citizenry, while at the same time being a member of the citizenry. An ethical struggle can develop, therefore, leading to confusion for thepublic administrator when carrying out the orders of superiors and beingloyal to the organization is in conflict with his or her duty to uphold thepublic interest.

The Responsible Administrator is not a book thatwill provide much satisfaction to public servants who are looking for theanswer to the question, "Why should I be moral?"But foradministrators in public service who are looking for a guide to assist themin developing an operation ethic - an "ethical identity" (p. 7) -Cooper delivers.Those who commit to and adopt his design methodologyshould do so only if they are prepared for an ongoing and maturationalprocess.Cooper is not proposing a read-it-once and master-it-forevertheory.Rather, he is calling for public administrators to commence alife-long journey of cultivating intuitive decision-making skills,resulting in responsibility and accountability to superiors, subordinates,the law, the public and themselves. ... Read more

Product Description

Once regarded as a conservative critic of culture, then enlisted by the court theoreticians of Nazism, Nietzsche has come to be revered by postmodern thinkers as one of their founding fathers, a prophet of human liberation who revealed the perspectival character of all knowledge and broke radically with traditional forms of morality and philosophy.

In Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist, Peter Berkowitz challenges this new orthodoxy, asserting that it produces a one-dimensional picture of Nietzsche's philosophical explorations and passes by much of what is provocative and problematic in his thought. Berkowitz argues that Nietzsche's thought is rooted in extreme and conflicting opinions about metaphysics and human nature. Discovering a deep unity in Nietzsche's work by exploring the structure and argumentative movement of a wide range of his books, Berkowitz shows that Nietzsche is a moral and political philosopher in the Socratic sense whose governing question is, "What is the best life?"

Nietzsche, Berkowitz argues, puts forward a severe and aristocratic ethics, an ethics of creativity, that demands that the few human beings who are capable acquire a fundamental understanding of and attain total mastery over the world. Following the path of Nietzsche's thought, Berkowitz shows that this mastery, which represents a suprapolitical form of rule and entails a radical denigration of political life, is, from Nietzsche's own perspective, neither desirable nor attainable.

Out of the colorful and richly textured fabric of Nietzsche's books, Peter Berkowitz weaves an interpretation of Nietzsche's achievement that is at once respectful and skeptical, an interpretation that brings out the love of truth, the courage, and the yearning for the good that mark Nietzsche's magisterial effort to live an examined life by giving an account of the best life.

Customer Reviews (3)

The definite guide to Nietzsche's thought
I've been reading Nietzsche for over four years now (which is about one fifth of my lifetime) and I still find this by far the best book on the subject (in second place is a book called "What Nietzsche means" by one George Morgan - first published in 1939!). Peter Berkowitz analyses, criticizes and, in this way, almost f i n a l i z e s Nietzsche's thought as he shows in which way Nietzsche's failures, too, contribute to his overall achievement, which is to show a n dj u s t i f y the limits of man's power over his own destiny. By all means read it: it is a milestone in modern thinking and will still be read in a hundred year's time.

Morality Beyond Ethics
Berkowitz does a good job undermining (a) the "new Nietzsche" ofrecent French theory and the postmodern politics of identity anddifference; and (b) the "old Nietzsche" cavalierly dismissed as anihilist and relativist.Where Berkowitz falls way short is in failing tounderstand how and why Nietzsche "relies" on traditional notionsheallegedly "repudiates" (e.g., nature, reason, morality). Nietzsche is not interested in repudiation but transfiguration.You can'ttransfigure what isn't first "figured" (life and values as theyhave been).What Berkowitz calls the "contest of [irreconcilable]extremes" at the heart of Nietzsche's thought is actuallythe contextin which Nietzsche argues for a life-affirming morality beyond thelife-denying ethics of what we would call "traditionalvalues." One may like the venerable truths Berkowitz favors.But how ironic to turnNietzsche, of all thinkers, into a virtual pretext for arguing traditionalvalues!

Intruiging interpretation of an outstanding philosopher
I read this book immediately after finishing Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.Berkowitz presents Nietzsche's philosophy in a way not often undertaken.He emphasizes the ethics that Nietzsche holds, despite his lack of belief in God.I enjoyed this because I felt, while reading Nietzsche, that he did not imply the death of morality with the death of God.Berkowitz does a fine job of proving this point. ... Read more

Product Description
Locke, John (1632-1704) - English philosopher who had a tremendous influence
on human knowledge and on political theory. He set down the principles of
modern English empiricism. Concerning Civil Government Second Essay (1690) -
States Locke’s belief in the natural goodness and cooperative spirit of man and
his theory that the state should operate according to the natural laws of reason and
tolerance. ... Read more

Product Description
Questioning the usual judgements of political ethics, Ruth W. Grant argues that hypocrisy can actually be constructive while strictly principled behavior can be destructive. Hypocrisy and Integrity offers a new conceptual framework that clarifies the differences between idealism and fanaticism while it uncovers the moral limits of compromise.

"Exciting and provocative. . . . Grant's work is to be highly recommended, offering a fresh reading of Rousseau and Machiavelli as well as presenting a penetrating analysis of hypocrisy and integrity."--Ronald J. Terchek, American Political Science Review

"A great refreshment. . . . With liberalism's best interests at heart, Grant seeks to make available a better understanding of the limits of reason in politics."--Peter Berkowitz, New Republic ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

ideology and pragmatism
I was looking for a book which could tell me whether it is possible to be both idealist and pragmatist at the same time.
This book seems to be the answer.
I havenot read it yet, but I liked its philosophical premises and language.
I feel this book will be a good one.

Grant's Integrated Conception of Morality and Reason
Ruth Grant has written a book that challenges many of the beliefs that have given form to our most important political debates. Grant defines a hypocrite as "a person who pretends to be morally better than he is for the sake of some advantage to himself." She starts by claiming there has been a failure by contemporary scholars to take hypocrisy in politics seriously. Why has this happened?Because part of the liberal project is to make politics "honest", reasoned, and transparent.

To be fair, Grant is not opposed to honesty and rationality. The point is that we demand too much rationality in politics by insisting that political debate and portrayal of issues and candidates is nothing more than information.Such rationalism is itself unreasonable, and creates pressures that promote lying and misrepresentation. ... Read more

Product Description
The founders of our country came here, fought, sacrificed and died for independence and freedom. Now, over 200 years later, we are beginning to see how tens of millions of Americans are too dependent on the government.

Massive government bailouts, excessive spending and a world wide recession have their roots in an addiction to unchecked and wasteful programs. This tendency is an epidemic. Entitlements have spread to become a curse affecting the fundamental core for our country to function effectively.

The causes are not hard to identify, but solutions are becoming more and more difficult because the fallacies are ingrained. Within this book, you will learn how entitlements:

- Cause Dependence

- Remove Incentives

- Create Resentment

- Stop Initiative

- Deny Accountability

- Reinforce Idleness

- Inhibit Creativity

- Obstruct Competition

- Stifle Free Enterprise

- Destroy Self Reliance

- Support Irresponsible Politicians

... Read more

Product Description
The third edition of "Ethics & International Affairs" provides a fresh selection of classroom resources, ideal for courses in international relations, ethics, foreign policy, and related fields. Published with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, this collection contains some of the best contemporary scholarship on international ethics, written by a group of distinguished political scientists, political theorists, philosophers, applied ethicists, and economic development specialists. Each contributor explores how moral theory can inform policy choices regarding topics such as war and intervention, international organizations, human rights, and global economic justice. This book provides an entry point into these key debates and offers a platform for further discussion. It was published in cooperation with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. ... Read more

Product Description
Profoundly important ethical and political controversies turn on the question of whether biological life is an essential aspect of a human person, or only an extrinsic instrument. Lee and George argue that human beings are physical, animal organisms - albeit essentially rational and free - and examine the implications of this understanding of human beings for some of the most controversial issues in contemporary ethics and politics. The authors argue that human beings are animal organisms and that their personal identity across time consists in the persistence of the animal organisms they are; they also argue that human beings are essentially rational and free and that there is a radical difference between human beings and other animals; criticize hedonism and hedonistic drug-taking; present detailed defenses of the prolife positions on abortion and euthanasia; and defend the traditional moral position on marriage and sexual acts. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Faith in the Disguise of Philosophy
If one believes as a matter of Faith in the gift of creation and the ownership of man by God his creator, this secularized version of faith is an adequate, though often obtusely worded, defense of that which the beauty of faith better expresses. Faith, however, disguised as philosophy is unpersuasive as the claimed philosophy despite its ornate phrasing -- which seems affected at times -- begs all of its essential questions including what flows from the obvious subordination of body to consciousness even in adults (compare, for example, the respect given quadraplegics and the manner of treatment of an equally unresponsive body of a deceased person), the book has even less explanatory power vis a vis embryos.The difficulty is Lee & George are the supposed (Catholic) philosophical foundation in reason for an entire edifice of harsh (premature) judgment and closed-minded politics that today plays out in ways that ultimately defeat the love of the creation story so much needed to be revived.

An Outstanding Philosophical Critique of Dualism
Lee and George have set forth a sophisticated refutation of the philosophical idea called "body-self dualism".At the heart of this philosophy is the view that humans persons are not deserving of moral respect in virtue of being whole, living, bodily human organisms, but in virtue of some quality which they develop over time, usually consciousness.It follows that human persons are something other than their bodies (not more than their bodies, but other than their bodies), that consciousness is personal but living bodies without consciousness are subpersonal.It further follows that those who are not yet conscious (e.g., embryos and fetuses), and those who have irretrievably lost consciousness (e.g., those in irreversible commas) are not persons and therefore may be treated instrumentally and even killed for the good of others.This reasoning underlies justifications for euthanasia, abortion and embryo destructive experimentation.
Lee and George set forth a basic argument in defense of the view that bodily (biological) life is an essential and intrinsic aspect of persons.They entertain extensive objections against this view.And then they put the view to work in relation to several contemporary controversial moral issues: hedonism and hedonistic drug taking, abortion, euthanasia and issues in sexual ethics.
The basic argument goes like this: sensation is a bodily act of a living being; therefore the agent that senses is a bodily entity, an animal; but in humans, the agent who senses also reasons and has self-awareness; therefore the agent who reasons and has self-awareness is a bodily entity, not a spiritual entity making use of the body as an extrinsic instrument.
Having established the animality of human beings, Lee and George in chapter two argue that human are nevertheless unique kinds of animals, animals with a radical difference from all other bodily beings, which requires that they be treated radically different from the way all other animals are treated.They argue, in other words, that the animal organism that constitutes the human being is a "person".And that the personhood claim is fully compatible with the animalist claim.This of course takes careful argument, which Lee and George execute masterfully.
Their `human organisms are human persons' argument has obvious and profound implications.For example, in chapter four it is used to address the issue of abortion.It leads to the conclusion that human embryos and fetuses are complete, though immature, human beings.But since human beings are human persons, embryos and fetuses are human persons.Since humans are deserving of full moral respect in virtue of being persons (i.e., in virtue of that which separates them from other animals), embryos and fetuses are deserving of full moral respect.
Similarly, in chapter five, treating euthanasia, they argue that since human beings remain persons throughout their entire duration as animal organisms (i.e., until organismic death), they retain the basis of their full moral worth -- and hence remain entitled to full moral respect --even when their health is diminished, even radically diminished by disease or incapacity.
Finally, in chapter six treating sex and the body Lee and George argue that since bodies are not extrinsic to persons but are fully personal, they cannot be treated as mere extrinsic tools in the pursuit of fulfillment by the conscious self.This indeed is how they are envisaged in contemporary forms of both sexual liberalism and libertinism, which, the authors argue, rely on an untenable dualistic conception of the person.They carefully argue that the traditional view that sexual activity is morally right only in marriage, and as open to new life and embodying marital unity, "is the only view consistent with the bodily nature of the human person."
The text is the most systematic and rigorous defense of the substantial unity of the human person available today and a most formidable critique of the body-self dualism that underlies much of today's liberal ethical reasoning.It provides the scholarly community and all intelligent persons interested in the questions it treats with sophisticated philosophical replies to some of the most pressing and indeed culture shaping moral questions of our day.
... Read more

Product Description
A thoughtful treatment of terrorism, synthesizing recent world events with the ideas of major philosophers - including Plato, Hobbes, Nietzsche, and others - to provide a foundation of hope for the future.

Did the world change on September 11, 2001? For those who live outside of New York or Washington, life's familiar pace persists and families and jobs resume their routines. Yet everything seems different because of the dramatic disturbance in our sense of what our world means and how we exist within it. In A Delicate Balance, philosopher Trudy Govier writes that it is because our feelings and attitudes have altered so fundamentally that our world has changed.

Govier believes that there are ethical challenges we cannot ignore. From Plato and Aristotle on courage to Kant on revenge, to 20th-century philosopher John Rawls's views on justice, Govier mines the world of philosophy to reflect on terrorism. Govier argues that moral complexities such as victimhood, evil, power and revenge, if properly understood, can provide a basis for hope- not despair. Govier walks the reader through this shift, challenging us to construct a new sense of the world and our place within it. ... Read more

Product Description
This short book starts from first principles of moral nihilism and determinism and arrives at a shared system of morality and justice.It suggests a moral or ethical system that abandons the assumptions of objectivity, moral agency, and free will, and goes on to explore the implications of such a theory in the areas of criminal justice and government. As with any moral philosophy, it endeavors to provide a structure of principles that both supports our moral intuitions and provides guidance in those cases in which we either have no convictions or possess only weak or contradictory ones. ... Read more

Product Description
Since it was first published in 1991, The Ethics Challenge in Public Service has become a classic text used by public managers and in public management programs across the country. This second edition is filled with practical tools and techniques for making ethical choices in the ambiguous, pressured world of public service. It explores the day-to-day ethical dilemmas managers face in their work, including what to do when rules recommend one action and compassion another, and whether it is ethical to dissent from agency policy. This essential text explores managers' accountability to different stakeholders and how to balance the often competing responsibilities. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Quickly shipped and in great condition
I would buy from this seller again.The book was just as advertised and I received it very quickly.

BORING
The subject of Ethics and Values in Public Service doesn't have to be dull. The book has valuable information, especially in the cases and excerpts, but the book is not a good read, even for a textbook.

Required Readng for Public Servants
It's tough to be a manager in a public agency.In addition to obeying the law, public servants have an additional ethical obligation to "serve the public interest" and "uphold the public trust".Even the appearance of not serving the public interest is unethical for public servants.Thus, while it could be okay for a manager in a private company to hire relatives and to let employees sleep on the job, it would be unethical for a manager in a public agency to do so.

This book was required reading for my graduate course in Ethics for Public Administrators.It should be required reading for every politician, public servant, and citizen, too.

keep looking
Just keep looking for something else ... Read more

Product Description
Asylum has become a highly charged political issue across developed countries over the last two decades. This book draws upon political and ethical theory and an examination of the experiences of the U.S., Germany, the U.K. and Australia to consider how to respond to the challenges of asylum. In addition to explaining why it has emerged as such a key political issue, the study provides a compelling account of how states could implement morally defensible responses to refugees. ... Read more

Product Description
Significant climate change as a consequence of human pollution of the atmosphere looks increasingly likely. Some change is already occurring but quite what magnitude of change will occur and what it will bring to different parts of the world remains unknown. Meanwhile, despite the catastrophic forecasts of the dangers that a warming world poses to human and other species, the consumer society of the North continues in its energy hungry path, and the peoples of the South continue to bear the cost.In the face of this uncertain yet impending crisis, does it make sense to speak of a moral response? Michael Northcott argues not only that it does, but that it is essential if we are to avoid further environmental disaster.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Most Complete
This book is the most complete analysis of not only global warming, but the lack of morals involved in the creation of situations that are causing the planet to heat.I've read a lot of literature on the subject of global warming andRev. Northcott covers all of the sub-topics. This is an excellent book and certainly, clergy of all stripes, as well as environmentalists,should be particularly interested in the contents.

A lie, taken to the nth degree
Sparse evidence of anthropogenic global warming is wielded like a bludgeon in an attempt to bend human behavior into a mold more to the author's liking.

Alarmists and self-loathers alike, rejoice! Your book is here.

A pick for both spirituality and social issues collections.
A MORAL CLIMATE: THE ETHICS OF GLOBAL WARMING offers a challenging, different look at global warming trends from a spiritual and ethical perspective, and comes from a leading international ethicist who has written other definitive works on the topic of Christian ethics and environmental thinking. From the failings in dominant economic models to the politics of oil around the world and religious perspectives and insights, this blend of Christian thought and social issues is a pick for both spirituality and social issues collections. ... Read more

Product Description
How do the hard facts of political responsibility shape and constrain thedemands of ethical life? That question lies at the heart of the problem of'dirty hands' in public life. Those who exercise political power often feel theymust act in ways which would otherwise be considered immoral: indeed,paradoxically, they sometimes feel that it would be immoral of them not toperform or condone such acts as killing or lying. John Parrish offers the firstwide-ranging account of how this important philosophical problem emerged anddeveloped, tracing it - and its proposed solutions - from ancient Greece throughthe Enlightenment. His central argument is that many of our most familiarconcepts and institutions - from Augustine's interiorized ethics, to Hobbes'ssovereign state, to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' understanding of the moderncommercial economy - were designed partly as responses to the ethical problem ofdirty hands in public life. ... Read more