Kamis, 10 Februari 2011

Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy

Animals obviously cannot have a right of free speech or a right to vote because they lack the relevant capacities. But their right to life and to be free of exploitation is no less fundamental than the corresponding right of humans, writes Julian H. Franklin. This theoretically rigorous book will reassure the committed, help the uncertain to decide, and arm the polemicist.Franklin examines all the major arguments for animal rights proposed to date and extends the philosophy in new directions. Animal Rights and Moral Philosophy begins by considering the utilitarian argument of equal respect for animals advocated by Peter Singer and, even more favorably, the rights approach that has been advanced by Tom Regan. Despite their merits, both are found wanting as theoretical foundations for animal rights. Franklin also examines the ecofeminist argument for an ethics of care and several rationalist arguments before concluding that Kant's categorical imperative can be expanded to form a basis for an ethical system that includes all sentient beings. Franklin also discusses compassion as applied to animals, encompassing Albert Schweitzer's ethics of reverence for life. He concludes his analysis by considering conflicts of rights between animals and humans.


Selasa, 08 Februari 2011

The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (Talking Images)

There are few philosophers today cool enough to be referenced in the Matrix, interesting enough to be mentioned on Six Feet Under, and popular enough to get over 400,000 hits on Google. Jean Baudrillard has succeeded in all of this and more. Now, in his latest book, Baudrillard presents his most popular themes symbolic exchange, hyper-reality, technology and warand applies them to the current global conflict between the West and the Rest, including Islam. Ultimately, it is not simply about the war against terror but about the bigger picture of capitalism versus everything else. This book serves as the summation of Baudrillards work over the last 20 years and is the essential analysis of the fundamental conflict of our time. 



Ethics In Action

This book is the product of a multiyear dialogue between leading human rights theorists and high-level representatives of international human rights nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) sponsored by the United Nations University, Tokyo, and the City University of Hong Kong. It is divided into three parts that reflect the major ethical challenges discussed at the workshops: the ethical challenges associated with interaction between relatively rich and powerful Northern-based human rights INGOs and recipients of their aid in the South; whether and how to collaborate with governments that place severe restrictions on the activities of human rights INGOs; and the tension between expanding organization mandate to address more fundamental social and economic problems and restricting it for the sake of focusing on more immediate and clearly identifiable violations of civil and political rights. Each section contains contributions from both theorists and practitioners of human rights.
 
http://www.4shared.com/document/pbNoTnYt/Ethics_in_Action-Daniel_A_Bell.html

Democracy and the Politics of the Extraordinary

Although the modern age is often described as the age of democratic revolutions, the subject of popular foundings has not captured the imagination of contemporary political thought. Most of the time, democratic theory and political science treat as the object of their inquiry normal politics, institutionalized power, and consolidated democracies. The aim of Andreas Kalyvas' study is to show why it is important for democratic theory to rethink the question of its beginnings. Is there a founding unique to democracies? Can a democracy be democratically established? What are the implications of expanding democratic politics in light of the question of whether and how to address democracy's beginnings? Kalyvas addresses these questions and scrutinizes the possibility of democratic beginnings in terms of the category of the extraordinary, as he reconstructs it from the writings of Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Hannah Arendt and their views on the creation of new political, symbolic, and constitutional orders.




Confucianism For The Modern World

While Confucian ideals continue to inspire thinkers and political actors, discussions of concrete Confucian practices and institutions appropriate for the modern era have been conspicuously absent from the literature thus far. This volume represents the most cutting edge effort to spell out in meticulous detail the relevance of Confucianism for the contemporary world. The contributors to this book - internationally renowned philosophers, lawyers, historians, and social scientists - argue for feasible and desirable Confucian policies and institutions as they attempt to draw out the political, economic, and legal implications of Confucianism for the modern world. The book is divided in three parts that correspond to the basic hallmarks of modernity as a social and political system - democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law.

Beyond Liberal Democracy

Is liberal democracy appropriate for East Asia? In this provocative book, Daniel Bell argues for morally legitimate alternatives to Western-style liberal democracy in the region. Beyond Liberal Democracy, which continues the author's influential earlier work, is divided into three parts that correspond to the three main hallmarks of liberal democracy--human rights, democracy, and capitalism. These features have been modified substantially during their transmission to East Asian societies that have been shaped by nonliberal practices and values. Bell points to the dangers of implementing Western-style models and proposes alternative justifications and practices that may be more appropriate for East Asian societies.
If human rights, democracy, and capitalism are to take root and produce beneficial outcomes in East Asia, Bell argues, they must be adjusted to contemporary East Asian political and economic realities and to the values of nonliberal East Asian political traditions such as Confucianism and Legalism. Local knowledge is therefore essential for realistic and morally informed contributions to debates on political reform in the region, as well as for mutual learning and enrichment of political theories.
Beyond Liberal Democracy is indispensable reading for students and scholars of political theory, Asian studies, and human rights, as well as anyone concerned about China's political and economic future and how Western governments and organizations should engage with China.


http://library.nu
http://www.4shared.com/document/mwGz1c1L/Beyond_Liberal_Democracy.html

The Beginning of Knowledge

In this work Gadamer reminds us that philosophy for the Greeks was not just a question of metaphysics and epistemology but encompassed cosmology, physics, mathematics, medicine and the entire reach of theoretical curiosity and intellectual mastery. Whereas Gadamer's book "The Beginning of Philosophy" dealt with the inception of philosophical inquiry, this book brings together nearly all of his previously published but never translated essays on the Presocratics. Beginning with a hermeneutical and philological investigation of the Heraclitus fragments (1974 and 1990), he then moves on to a discussion of the Greek Atomists (1935) and the Presocratic cosmologists (1964). In the last two essays (1978 and 1994/95), Gadamer elaborates on the profound debt that modern scientific thinking owes to the Greek philosophical tradition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
http://www.4shared.com/document/8ANNFFzW/THE_BEGINNING_OF_KNOWLEDGE.html

Rabu, 02 Februari 2011

Animals Are Not Our Tasters

The last thing animals need are new reasons for exploiting them. They have already been drowned enough, shocked enough; burned, starved, bled enough; been socially deprived, blinded, rendered deaf and denied sleep enough; had their brains scrambled, their limbs severed, their internal organs crushed enough; suffered induced heart attacks, induced peptic ulcers, induced paralysis, induced epileptic seizures enough; been forcibly made to smoke cigarettes, ingest heroin and cocaine enough; been used in enough high school science fairs, in enough college laboratories, in enough sessions of "practice" surgery; been living targets in enough tests of military weapons, irradiated in enough nuclear explosions, suffered enough in research in germ and chemical warfare; been made to swallow enough brake fluid and carburetor cleaner, had their eyes blinded by enough paint stripper and face cleaners, had their bare skin exposed to enough caustic industrial and commercial chemicals and solvents.
http://www.4shared.com/document/zL2RpvVm/Tom_Regan__Animals_are_not_our.html