Knowing Right From Wrong

Knowing Right From Wrong
Author: Kieran Setiya
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2012-11-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199657459

Can we have objective knowledge of right and wrong, of how we should live and what there is reason to do? Can it be anything but luck when our beliefs are true? Kieran Setiya confronts these questions in their most compelling and articulate forms, and argues that if there is objective ethical knowledge, human nature is its source.

Right/Wrong

Right/Wrong
Author: Juan Enriquez
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2021-09-14
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 0262542811

A lively and entertaining guide to ethics in a technological age. Most people have a strong sense of right and wrong, and they aren't shy about expressing their opinions. But when we take a polarizing stand on something we regard as an eternal truth, we often forget that ethics evolve over time. Many shifts in the right versus wrong pendulum are driven by advances in technology. Our great-grandparents might be shocked by in vitro fertilization; our great-grandchildren might be shocked by the messiness of pregnancy, childbirth, and unedited genes. In Right/Wrong, Juan Enriquez reflects on what happens to our ethics as technology makes the once unimaginable a commonplace occurrence.

The Right to Do Wrong

The Right to Do Wrong
Author: Mark Osiel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2019-02-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674368258

Common morality—in the form of shame, outrage, and stigma—has always been society’s first line of defense against ethical transgressions. Social mores crucially complement the law, Mark Osiel shows, sparing us from oppressive formal regulation. Much of what we could do, we shouldn’t—and we don’t. We have a free-speech right to be offensive, but we know we will face outrage in response. We may declare bankruptcy, but not without stigma. Moral norms constantly demand more of us than the law requires, sustaining promises we can legally break and preventing disrespectful behavior the law allows. Mark Osiel takes up this curious interplay between lenient law and restrictive morality, showing that law permits much wrongdoing because we assume that rights are paired with informal but enforceable duties. People will exercise their rights responsibly or else face social shaming. For the most part, this system has worked. Social order persists despite ample opportunity for reprehensible conduct, testifying to the decisive constraints common morality imposes on the way we exercise our legal prerogatives. The Right to Do Wrong collects vivid case studies and social scientific research to explore how resistance to the exercise of rights picks up where law leaves off and shapes the legal system in turn. Building on recent evidence that declining social trust leads to increasing reliance on law, Osiel contends that as social changes produce stronger assertions of individual rights, it becomes more difficult to depend on informal tempering of our unfettered freedoms. Social norms can be indefensible, Osiel recognizes. But the alternative—more repressive law—is often far worse. This empirically informed study leaves little doubt that robust forms of common morality persist and are essential to the vitality of liberal societies.

Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong

Why Johnny Can't Tell Right from Wrong
Author: William Kilpatrick
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1993-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0671870734

A hard-hitting and controversial book, WHY JOHNNY CAN'T TELL RIGHT FROM WRONG will not only open eyes but change minds. America today suffers from unprecedented rates of teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, suicide, and violence. Most of the programs intended to deal with these problems have failed because, according to William Kilpatrick, schools and parents have abandoned the moral teaching they once provided. In WHY JOHNNY CAN'T TELL RIGHT FROM WRONG, Kilpatrick shows how we can correct this problem by providing our youngsters with the stories, models, and inspirations they need in order to lead good lives. He also encourages parents to read to their children and provides an annotated guide to more than 120 books for children and young adults.

Moral Minds

Moral Minds
Author: Marc D. Hauser
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2009-10-13
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0061864781

A Harvard scientist illuminates the biological basis for human morality in this groundbreaking book. With the diversity of moral attitudes found across cultures around the globe, it is easy to assume that moral perspectives are socially developed—a matter of nurture rather than nature. But in Moral Minds, Marc Hauser presents compelling evidence to the contrary, and offers a revolutionary new theory: that humans have evolved a universal moral instinct. Hauser argues that certain biologically innate moral principles propel us toward judgments of right and wrong independent of gender, education, and religion. Combining his cutting-edge research with the latest findings in cognitive psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, economics, and anthropology, Hauser explores the startling implications of his provocative theory vis-à-vis contemporary bioethics, religion, the law, and our everyday lives.

Telling Right from Wrong

Telling Right from Wrong
Author: Timothy J. Cooney
Publisher: Humanities Press International
Total Pages: 176
Release: 1985
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

Morality has occupied the minds of men since the first spear was raised in anger. But what is morality? What does it mean to be moral? And how do we determine what falls outside the bounds of ethical discussion? Mr. Cooney develops a unique moral theory in which he isolates and explores the core of morality. He contends that in common usage it reveals an ultimate and all-but-universal guide to action, a guide that provides the basis for delcaring some actions (e.g., murder, arson, assault, robbery, etc.) to be wrong, while it considers other types of behavior (e.g., homosexuality, gambling, drinking, abortion, etc.) to be matters of politics and opinion rather than morality. Mr. Cooney separates actual from apparent moral issues and, in doing so, seeks to spare society needless and potentially disastrous confrontations. He offers a firm response to those who claims that morality is ultimately relative. -- From publisher's description.

Ethics

Ethics
Author: J.L. Mackie
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 272
Release: 1990-08-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0141960094

An insight into moral skepticism of the 20th century. The author argues that our every-day moral codes are an 'error theory' based on the presumption of moral facts which, he persuasively argues, don't exist. His refutation of such facts is based on their metaphysical 'queerness' and the observation of cultural relativity.

Being Wrong

Being Wrong
Author: Kathryn Schulz
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2011-01-04
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0061176052

To err is human. Yet most of us go through life assuming (and sometimes insisting) that we are right about nearly everything, from the origins of the universe to how to load the dishwasher. In Being Wrong, journalist Kathryn Schulz explores why we find it so gratifying to be right and so maddening to be mistaken. Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Darwin, Freud, Gertrude Stein, Alan Greenspan, and Groucho Marx, she shows that error is both a given and a gift—one that can transform our worldviews, our relationships, and ourselves.

Knowing Right From Wrong

Knowing Right From Wrong
Author: Richard Moran
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2000-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0743205898

From Simon & Schuster, Knowing Right From Wrong is Richard Moran's look at the insanity defense of Daniel McNaughtan. In this examination of the precedent-setting case, Moran looks through an enlightened humanitarian lens of judgments passed on mentally ill defendants by judges and juries as a result of political climate and considerations.

Be Right Or Go Wrong

Be Right Or Go Wrong
Author: E. Marie Bothe
Publisher: The Alpha Publishing House
Total Pages: 57
Release: 2008-12-17
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1881074129

All through the centuries people have believed they were free to behave as they chose, whether within the constraints of moral parameters or with total abandonment to their desires. The Right-Action Ethic developed by the late Richard W. Wetherill is a lifestyle based on his discovery of a natural law of behavior. Wetherill called it the law of absolute right: Right action gets right results, whereas wrong action gets wrong results. People who apply the Right-Action Ethic think it is vital to stem the tide of wrong results washing across all levels of society here and abroad.Read about soul-level experience. Paying attention to your particular difficulty and changing the outcome is the basis of this online book. Introduction: There is a well-known saying, "As you sow, so shall you reap." History tells us that society has been sowing seeds of dissent throughout the centuries: Rulers dissent to rule, politicians dissent to be elected, ethnic groups dissent to control, parents and children dissent for the upper hand, and virtually everybody dissents to the reality of whatever is happening by emotionally taking sides politically, socially and spiritually. In the 1920s the late Richard W. Wetherill was given insight into a law of behavior existing in nature and impacting people's daily affairs without their awareness of its existence. As a result of conforming with that natural law, Wetherill was able to pursue several successful careers in his nearly seventy adult years as a teacher, training executive, author and management consultant. Wetherill called the law of behavior, the law of absolute right: Right action gets right results, whereas wrong action gets wrong results. The law clearly establishes that right begets right and wrong begets wrong. Do people know right from wrong? Some people would argue that nobody can know, because what is right for one is not right for another. Careful questioning reveals that many of those argumentative people know more about what is right than they are willing to admit. When they want to get their way, their attitude is one of "I know it's wrong, but I'm going to do it anyway."