Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Law relies on a conception of human agency, the idea that humans are capable of making their own choices and are morally responsible for the consequences. But what if that is not the case? Over the past half century, the story of the law has been one of increased acuity concerning the human condition, especially the workings of the brain. The law already considers select cognitive realities in evaluating questions of agency and responsibility, such as age, sanity, and emotional distress. As new neuroscientific research comprehensively calls into question the very idea of free will, how should the law respond to this revised understanding? Peter A. Alces considers where and how the law currently fails to appreciate the neuroscientific revelation that humans may in key ways lack normative free will-and therefore moral responsibility. The most accessible setting in which to consider the potential impact of neuroscience is criminal law, as certain aspects of criminal law already reveal the naiveté of most normative reasoning, such as the inconsistent treatment of people with equally disadvantageous cognitive deficits, whether congenital or acquired. But tort and contract law also assume a flawed conception of human agency and responsibility. Alces reveals the internal contradictions of extant legal doctrine and concludes by considering what would be involved in constructing novel legal regimes based on emerging neuroscientific insights.

Law and ethics. --- Free will and determinism. --- Neurosciences. --- cognitive psychology. --- deontology. --- determinism. --- folk psychology. --- free will. --- instrumentalism. --- law. --- moral responsibility. --- neuroscience. --- non-instrumentalism.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This book argues that there is no morality and that people are not morally responsible for what they do. In particular, it argues that what people do is neither right nor wrong and that they are neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy for doing it. Morality and moral responsibility lie at the heart of how we view the world. In our daily life, we feel that people act rightly or wrongly, make the world better or worse, and are virtuous or vicious. These policies are central to our justifying how we see the world and treat others. In this book, the author argues that our views on these matters are false. He presents a series of arguments that threaten to undermine our theoretical and practical worldviews. The philosophical costs of denying moral responsibility and morality are enormous. It does violence to philosophical positions that many people took a lifetime to develop. Worse, it does violence to our everyday view of people. A host of concepts that we rely on daily (praiseworthy, blameworthy, desert, virtue, right, wrong, good, bad, etc.) fail to refer to any property in the world and are thus deeply mistaken. This book is of interest to philosophers, lawyers, and humanities professors as well as people interested in morality, law, religion, and public policy. .

Responsibility. --- Virtue. --- Conduct of life --- Ethics --- Human acts --- Accountability --- Moral responsibility --- Obligation --- Supererogation --- Ethics. --- Religion and sociology. --- Religion and Society. --- Religion and society --- Religious sociology --- Society and religion --- Sociology, Religious --- Sociology and religion --- Sociology of religion --- Sociology --- Deontology --- Ethics, Primitive --- Ethology --- Moral philosophy --- Morality --- Morals --- Philosophy, Moral --- Science, Moral --- Philosophy --- Values

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

What does it mean to be responsible for our actions? In this brief and elegant study, Giorgio Agamben traces our most profound moral intuitions back to their roots in the sphere of law and punishment. Moral accountability, human free agency, and even the very concept of cause and effect all find their origin in the language of the trial, which Western philosophy and theology both transform into the paradigm for all of human life. In his search for a way out of this destructive paradigm, Agamben not only draws on minority opinions within the Western tradition but engages at length with Buddhist texts and concepts for the first time. In sum, Karman deepens and rearticulates some of Agamben's core insights while breaking significant new ground.

Law and ethics. --- Law --- Free will and determinism. --- Act (Philosophy) --- Responsibility. --- Accountability --- Moral responsibility --- Obligation --- Ethics --- Supererogation --- Action (Philosophy) --- Agent (Philosophy) --- Philosophy --- Compatibilism --- Determinism and free will --- Determinism and indeterminism --- Free agency --- Freedom and determinism --- Freedom of the will --- Indeterminism --- Liberty of the will --- Determinism (Philosophy) --- Jurisprudence --- Ethics and law --- Law and morals --- Morals and law --- Philosophy.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

A celebrated study of the origins of ancient Greek philosophy, now in English for the first timeHow can we talk about the beginnings of philosophy today? How can we avoid the conventional opposition of mythology and the dawn of reason and instead explore the multiple styles of thought that emerged between them? In this acclaimed book, available in English for the first time, Maria Michela Sassi reconstructs the intellectual world of the early Greek "Presocratics" to provide a richer understanding of the roots of what used to be called "the Greek miracle."The beginnings of the long process leading to philosophy were characterized by intellectual diversity and geographic polycentrism. In the sixth and fifth centuries BC, between the Asian shores of Ionia and the Greek city-states of southern Italy, thinkers started to reflect on the cosmic order, elaborate doctrines on the soul, write in solemn Homeric meter, or, later, abandon poetry for an assertive prose. And yet the Presocratics whether the Milesian natural thinkers, the rhapsode Xenophanes, the mathematician and "shaman" Pythagoras, the naturalist and seer Empedocles, the oracular Heraclitus, or the inspired Parmenides all shared an approach to critical thinking that, by questioning traditional viewpoints, revolutionized knowledge.A unique study that explores the full range of early Greek thinkers in the context of their worlds, the book also features a new introduction to the English edition in which the author discusses the latest scholarship on the subject.

Pre-Socratic philosophers. --- Vorsokratiker. --- Griechenland --- History of philosophy --- Greece --- Pre-Socratics --- Presocratic philosophers --- Presocratics --- Philosophers --- Anaximander. --- Aristotle. --- Empedocles. --- Francis MacDonald Cornford. --- Greek gods. --- Greek miracle. --- Greek philosophy. --- Greek thinkers. --- Heraclitus. --- Hesiod. --- Karl Popper. --- Metaphysics. --- Muses. --- Parmenides. --- Pherecydes of Syros. --- Presocratics. --- Thales. --- Theogony. --- Thetis. --- Xenophanes. --- archē. --- authorial voice. --- authority. --- celestial bodies. --- cosmogony. --- cosmos. --- critical thinking. --- egotism. --- epic poetry. --- geographic polycentrism. --- innovation. --- intellectual diversity. --- intellectual memory. --- intellectual world. --- knowledge. --- moral responsibility. --- muthos. --- myth. --- mythology. --- personal identity. --- philosophical rationality. --- philosophy. --- poetry. --- polis. --- prose. --- psuchē. --- rational argumentation. --- reason. --- salvation. --- soul. --- truth. --- writing.