In Our Name

In Our Name
Author: Eric Beerbohm
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2015-12-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691168156

When a government in a democracy acts in our name, are we, as citizens, responsible for those acts? What if the government commits a moral crime? The protestor's slogan--"Not in our name!"--testifies to the need to separate ourselves from the wrongs of our leaders. Yet the idea that individual citizens might bear a special responsibility for political wrongdoing is deeply puzzling for ordinary morality and leading theories of democracy. In Our Name explains how citizens may be morally exposed to the failures of their representatives and state institutions, and how complicity is the professional hazard of democratic citizenship. Confronting the ethical challenges that citizens are faced with in a self-governing democracy, Eric Beerbohm proposes institutional remedies for dealing with them. Beerbohm questions prevailing theories of democracy for failing to account for our dual position as both citizens and subjects. Showing that the obligation to participate in the democratic process is even greater when we risk serving as accomplices to wrongdoing, Beerbohm argues for a distinctive division of labor between citizens and their representatives that charges lawmakers with the responsibility of incorporating their constituents' moral principles into their reasoning about policy. Grappling with the practical issues of democratic decision making, In Our Name engages with political science, law, and psychology to envision mechanisms for citizens seeking to avoid democratic complicity.

Agency and Democracy in Development Ethics

Agency and Democracy in Development Ethics
Author: Lori Keleher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 489
Release: 2019-03-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107195004

Economists, philosophers, and policy experts from the Global North and South advance the conversation on the ethical dimensions of agency and democracy in development. These diverse essays from leading development academics and practitioners will interest students and scholars of global justice, international development and political philosophy.

Ethics of Global Development

Ethics of Global Development
Author: David A. Crocker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 610
Release: 2008-07-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1139472763

Poverty, inequality, violence, environmental degradation, and tyranny continue to afflict the world. Ethics of Global Development offers a moral reflection on the ends and means of local, national, and global efforts to overcome these five scourges. After emphasizing the role of ethics in development studies, policy-making, and practice, David A. Crocker analyzes and evaluates Amartya Sen's philosophy of development in relation to alternative ethical outlooks. He argues that Sen's turn to robust ideals of human agency and democracy improves on both Sen's earlier emphasis on 'capabilities and functionings' and Martha Nussbaum's version of the capability orientation. This agency-focused capability approach is then extended and strengthened by applying it to the challenges of consumerism and hunger, the development responsibilities of affluent individuals and nations, and the dilemmas of globalization. Throughout the book the author argues for the importance of more inclusive and deliberative democratic institutions.

John Dewey's Ethics

John Dewey's Ethics
Author: Gregory Pappas
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2008-07-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780253219794

John Dewey, widely known as "America's philosopher," provided important insights into education and political philosophy, but surprisingly never set down a complete moral or ethical philosophy. Gregory Fernando Pappas presents the first systematic and comprehensive treatment of Dewey's ethics. By providing a pluralistic account of moral life that is both unified and coherent, Pappas considers ethics to be key to an understanding of Dewey's other philosophical insights, especially his views on democracy. Pappas unfolds Dewey's ethical vision by looking carefully at the virtues and values of ideal character and community. Showing that Dewey's ethics are compatible with the rest of his philosophy, Pappas corrects the reputation of American pragmatism as a philosophy committed to skepticism and relativism. Readers will find a robust and boldly detailed view of Dewey's ethics in this groundbreaking book.

Social Choice and Democratic Values

Social Choice and Democratic Values
Author: Eerik Lagerspetz
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2015-11-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319232614

This book offers a comprehensive overview and critique of the most important political and philosophical interpretations of the basic results of social choice, assessing their plausibility and seeking to identify the links between the theory of social choice and the more traditional issues of political theory and philosophy. In this regard, the author eschews a strong methodological commitment or technical formalism; the approach is instead based on the presentation of political facts and illustrated via numerous real-life examples. This allows the reader to get acquainted with the philosophical and political dispute surrounding voting and collective decision-making and its links to social choice theory.

A Shared Future

A Shared Future
Author: Richard L. Wood
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-12-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780226305974

Faith-based community organizers have spent decades working for greater equality in American society, and more recently have become significant players in shaping health care, finance, and immigration reform at the highest levels of government. In A Shared Future, Richard L. Wood and Brad R. Fulton draw on a new national study of community organizing coalitions and in-depth interviews of key leaders in this field to show how faith-based organizing is creatively navigating the competing aspirations of America’s universalist and multiculturalist democratic ideals, even as it confronts three demons bedeviling American politics: economic inequality, federal policy paralysis, and racial inequity. With a broad view of the entire field and a distinct empirical focus on the PICO National Network, Wood and Fulton’s analysis illuminates the tensions, struggles, and deep rewards that come with pursuing racial equity within a social change organization and in society. Ultimately, A Shared Future offers a vision for how we might build a future that embodies the ethical democracy of the best American dreams. An interview of the authors on the subject of faith leaders organizing for justice (Peace Talks Radio, copyright Good Radio Shows, Inc.) can be heard at this link: https://beta.prx.org/stories/190030

Virtues, Democracy, and Online Media

Virtues, Democracy, and Online Media
Author: Nancy E. Snow
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2021-07-04
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000406113

This book addresses current threats to citizenship and democratic values posed by the spread of post-truth communication. The contributors apply research on moral, civic, and epistemic virtues to issues involving post-truth culture. The spread of post-truth communication affects ordinary citizens’ commitment to truth and attitudes toward information sources, thereby threatening the promotion of democratic ideals in public debate. The chapters in this volume investigate the importance of helping citizens improve the quality of their online agency and raise awareness of the risks social media poses to democratic values. This book moves from two initial chapters that provide historical background and overview of the present post-truth malaise, through a series of chapters that feature mainly diagnostic accounts of the epistemic and ethical issues we face, to the complexities of virtue-theoretic analyses of specific virtues and vices. Virtues, Democracy, and Online Media will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in virtue ethics, epistemology, political philosophy, and media studies.

Education, Justice & Democracy

Education, Justice & Democracy
Author: Danielle Allen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2013-03-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 022601293X

Education is a contested topic, and not just politically. For years scholars have approached it from two different points of view: one empirical, focused on explanations for student and school success and failure, and the other philosophical, focused on education’s value and purpose within the larger society. Rarely have these separate approaches been brought into the same conversation. Education, Justice, and Democracy does just that, offering an intensive discussion by highly respected scholars across empirical and philosophical disciplines. The contributors explore how the institutions and practices of education can support democracy, by creating the conditions for equal citizenship and egalitarian empowerment, and how they can advance justice, by securing social mobility and cultivating the talents and interests of every individual. Then the authors evaluate constraints on achieving the goals of democracy and justice in the educational arena and identify strategies that we can employ to work through or around those constraints. More than a thorough compendium on a timely and contested topic, Education, Justice, and Democracy exhibits an entirely new, more deeply composed way of thinking about education as a whole and its importance to a good society.

The Common Cause

The Common Cause
Author: Leela Gandhi
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2014-03-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022602007X

Europeans and Americans tend to hold the opinion that democracy is a uniquely Western inheritance, but in The Common Cause, Leela Gandhi recovers stories of an alternate version, describing a transnational history of democracy in the first half of the twentieth century through the lens of ethics in the broad sense of disciplined self-fashioning. Gandhi identifies a shared culture of perfectionism across imperialism, fascism, and liberalism—an ethic that excluded the ordinary and unexceptional. But, she also illuminates an ethic of moral imperfectionism, a set of anticolonial, antifascist practices devoted to ordinariness and abnegation that ranged from doomed mutinies in the Indian military to Mahatma Gandhi’s spiritual discipline. Reframing the way we think about some of the most consequential political events of the era, Gandhi presents moral imperfectionism as the lost tradition of global democratic thought and offers it to us as a key to democracy’s future. In doing so, she defends democracy as a shared art of living on the other side of perfection and mounts a postcolonial appeal for an ethics of becoming common.

Democratic Ethical Educational Leadership

Democratic Ethical Educational Leadership
Author: Steven Jay Gross
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2015-08-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135037809

A democratic, ethical leader integrates democracy, social justice, and school reform through dialogue and is guided by a sense of responsibility to students, families, and the community. Democratic Ethical Educational Leadership presents a cohesive framework for aspiring and practicing leaders to explore the complex nature of leadership that can support democratic citizenry and social responsibility. Organized around the 5 "New DEEL" visions for leadership, chapters illustrate real people who embody these principles. This compelling vision for educational leadership, combined with diverse and vibrant examples of leadership in action, will serve as a critical guide for the rising generation of democratic ethical educational leaders in the US and abroad. Presenting contextualized, practical instances of this approach to leadership, this book will inspire educational leaders to reflect upon their practice and reach their potential as democratic leaders. Special Features Include: A unique framework to guide responsible, ethical leadership in today’s schools. A series of case studies help readers identify key leadership qualities in context from which to illuminate their own emerging practice. End-of-chapter questions encourage exploration of leaders’ motivations, processes, strategies, and lessons learned.