The Positive Function of Evil

The Positive Function of Evil
Author: P. Tabensky
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2009-06-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 023024226X

This collection explores the controversial and perhaps even abject idea that evils, large and small, human and natural, may have a central positive function to play in our lives. For centuries a concern of religious thinkers from the Christian tradition, very little systematic work has been done to explore this idea from the secular point of view.

Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God

Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God
Author: Marilyn McCord Adams
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2018-09-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1501735926

When confronted by horrendous evil, even the most pious believer may question not only life's worth but also God's power and goodness. A distinguished philosopher and a practicing minister, Marilyn McCord Adams has written a highly original work on a fundamental dilemma of Christian thought—how to reconcile faith in God with the evils that afflict human beings. Adams argues that much of the discussion in analytic philosophy of religion over the last forty years has offered too narrow an understanding of the problem. The ground rules accepted for the discussion have usually led philosophers to avert their gaze from the worst—horrendous—evils and their devastating impact on human lives. They have agreed to debate the issue on the basis of religion-neutral values, and have focused on morals, an approach that—Adams claims—is inadequate for formulating and solving the problem of horrendous evils. She emphasizes instead the fruitfulness of other evaluative categories such as purity and defilement, honor and shame, and aesthetics. If redirected, philosophical reflection on evil can, Adams's book demonstrates, provide a valuable approach not only to theories of God and evil but also to pastoral care.

The Atrocity Paradigm

The Atrocity Paradigm
Author: Claudia Card
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2002-09-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199881790

What distinguishes evils from ordinary wrongs? Is hatred a necessarily evil? Are some evils unforgivable? Are there evils we should tolerate? What can make evils hard to recognize? Are evils inevitable? How can we best respond to and live with evils? Claudia Card offers a secular theory of evil that responds to these questions and more. Evils, according to her theory, have two fundamental components. One component is reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm -- harm that makes a life indecent and impossible or that makes a death indecent. The other component is culpable wrongdoing. Atrocities, such as genocides, slavery, war rape, torture, and severe child abuse, are Cards paradigms because in them these key elements are writ large. Atrocities deserve more attention than secular philosophers have so far paid them. They are distinguished from ordinary wrongs not by the psychological states of evildoers but by the seriousness of the harm that is done. Evildoers need not be sadistic:they may simply be negligent or unscrupulous in pursuing their goals. Cards theory represents a compromise between classic utilitarian and stoic alternatives (including Kants theory of radical evil). Utilitarians tend to reduce evils to their harms; Stoics tend to reduce evils to the wickedness of perpetrators: Card accepts neither reduction. She also responds to Nietzsches challenges about the worth of the concept of evil, and she uses her theory to argue that evils are more important than merely unjust inequalities. She applies the theory in explorations of war rape and violence against intimates. She also takes up what Primo Levi called the gray zone, where victims become complicit in perpetrating on others evils that threaten to engulf themselves. While most past accounts of evil have focused on perpetrators, Card begins instead from the position of the victims, but then considers more generally how to respond to -- and live with -- evils, as victims, as perpetrators, and as those who have become both.

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 3

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 3
Author: Mark Timmons
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2013-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191509779

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics is an annual forum for new work in normative ethical theory. Leading philosophers present original contributions to our understanding of a wide range of moral issues and positions, from analysis of competing approaches to normative ethics (including moral realism, constructivism, and expressivism) to questions of how we should act and live well. OSNE will be an essential resource for scholars and students working in moral philosophy.

Material Ethics of Value: Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann

Material Ethics of Value: Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann
Author: E. Kelly
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2011-08-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9400718454

Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann developed ethics upon a phenomenological basis. This volume demonstrates that their contributions to a material ethics of value are complementary: by supplementing the work of one with that of the other, we obtain a comprehensive and defensible axiological and moral theory. By “phenomenology,” we refer to an intuitive procedure that attempts to describe thematically the insights into essences, or the meaning-elements of judgments, that underlie and make possible our conscious awareness of a world and the evaluative judgments we make of the objects and persons we encounter in the world.

Achievement

Achievement
Author: Gwen Bradford
Publisher:
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2015
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0198714025

From the magisterial to the mundane, achievements play a role in the best kind of human life, and many people think that they are of such importance that they are worth pursuing at the expense of serious sacrifices. Yet for all that, no philosophers have devoted more than a few short passages to discerning what makes achievements valuable, or even what makes something an achievement to begin with. Gwen Bradford presents the first systematic account of what achievements are, and what it is about them that makes them worth doing. It turns out that more things count as achievements than we might have thought, and that what makes them valuable isn't something we usually think of as good. It turns out that difficulty, perhaps surprisingly, plays a central part in characterizing achievements and their value: achievements are worth the effort. But just what does it mean for something to be difficult, and why is it valuable? A thorough analysis of the nature of difficulty is given, and ultimately, the best account of the value of achievements taps into perfectionist axiology. But not just any perfectionist theory of value will do, and in this book we see a new perfectionist theory developed that succeeds in capturing the value of achievement better than its predecessors.

Analytical philosophy. The Classic Collection (10 books). Illustrated

Analytical philosophy. The Classic Collection (10 books). Illustrated
Author: Gottlob Frege
Publisher: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
Total Pages: 2045
Release: 2023-05-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

Originating in the pioneering work of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein in the four decades around the turn of the twentieth century, analytic philosophy established itself in various forms in the 1930s. After the Second World War, it developed further in North America, in the rest of Europe, and is now growing in influence as the dominant philosophical tradition right across the world, from Latin America to East Asia. Gottlob Frege. On Sense and Reference Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy Our Knowledge of the External World Why Men Fight Political Ideals Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism The Analysis of Mind Free Thought and Official Propaganda G. E. Moore Principia Ethica Philosophical Studies Ludwig Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (With an Introduction by Bertrand Russell)

Knowledge

Knowledge
Author:
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2006-12-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0615136583

The book Knowledge presents the solutions of value and complete automation. It allows open-ended discussions until everything is fully explained. It starts with infallibility of real estate and stock predictions by the Infinite Spreadsheet, a software based on the solution of value. It points out Alan GreenspanâÂÂs ignorance on the relationship of inflation, return, and interest rates. It resolves Milton FreidmanâÂÂs dilemma on planning. It exposes Bill Gates with completely automation, which is explained in non-technical language by C. V. Ramamoorthy and T. L. Kunii, who co-author the book with its inventor Hugh Ching. Its vision of self-creation will reveal from the design specifications the meaning of life. It will overwhelm all the knowledge for a millennium and will grow, with its sequels, into the analytical counterpart of the Ching of Buddhism or the Bible. It extends the finite science into infinite reality in post-science and updates the Bible, now challenged by science.

Principia Ethica

Principia Ethica
Author: G. E. Moore
Publisher: Good Press
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2023-10-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

"Principia Ethica" by G. E. Moore is a philosophical masterpiece that delves into the fundamental principles of ethics and morality. Moore's work is a profound exploration of the nature of good and the complexities of ethical decision-making. This book is essential reading for philosophy enthusiasts and those interested in moral philosophy, as it offers a deep and rigorous examination of ethical concepts and the quest for moral truth. It continues to influence contemporary ethical discussions and provides a solid foundation for ethical reasoning.