Social PhilosophyRoutledge, 2015 M03 4 - 240 pages This accessible introductory text discusses how people in a pluralistic society such as ours can accept a common social ethic - a publicly justified morality. It presents analyses of the basic concepts, including justifications of liberty, harm to others, private property rights, distributive justice, environmental harms, help to others and offensive behaviour. Gaus acquaints the reader with the major figures in social philosophy - John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, John Rawls, David Gauthier, and Joel Feinberg - as well as recent communitarian philosophers. The basic technical aspects of social philosophy are also introduced: game theory, social choice theory, the ideas rational action, rational bargaining, and public goods. Throughout, helpful short examples and stories are used to illustrate the material. |
Contents
Reasonable Pluralism? | |
Weak Contractualism | |
Liberty | |
The Harm Principle | |
Property | |
Public Harms and Common Goods | |
Two QuasiMillian Principles | |
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Common terms and phrases
accept According action agree Alf’s argued authoritarian autonomy avoid basic believe benefits Bentham Betty Betty’s chap Chapter Charlie choice choose claim common conception condition Consider contractors contractualist cooperation David Gauthier David Hume deserving fair Feinberg freedom Gauthier goal pursuers goal-pursuing moral persons harmful act Hobbes Hobbesian human Ibid individuals insist interference Joel Feinberg John Rawls John Stuart Mill liberal liberty limiting lives maximin Mill Mill’s moral demands nature neo-Hobbesian Offensive Nuisance Principle one’s option Oxford pain people’s personal ideals pleasure Pool Lounger preferences prisoner’s dilemma problem prohibit property rights Proviso Public Harm Principle public justification public morality publicly justified Rawls Rawls’s Rawlsian reasonable goal-pursuing moral reasonable pluralism regulative interests reject relativism requires Robert Nozick rule seeks seems set back simply social contract social morality social philosophy society someone steal Suppose teleological argument theory things utilitarianism veil of ignorance wants welfare interests wrong X-ing