Contemporary Ethical Issues: A Personalist Perspective

by Walter G. Jeffko

Overview

An expert on the philosophy of John Macmurray evaluates current ethical concerns raised by economic inequality, the influence of money on politics, political extremism, the election of Donald Trump, and more. Now in a newly revised fourth edition, Contemporary Ethical Issues explores a series of compelling moral problems from a personalist perspective influenced by the Scottish philosopher John Macmurray (1891-1976). In many publications spanning fifty years, most notably his Gifford Lectures titled "The Form of the Personal," Macmurray developed a robust personalism that emphasizes the primacy of persons as rational agents. In his view, self-realization is achieved in community where justice and individual rights are respected. From the background of a liberal Roman Catholic, Walter G. Jeffko utilizes key elements of Macmurray's thought in developing his own philosophical viewpoint, and he relates Macmurray's ideas to those of a wide variety of important philosophers, ethicists, and other notable thinkers, including ecologists and war theorists. The essays in this edition address the topics of the moral treatment of civilians in war (including an extensive moral evaluation of the Iraqi War), recent Supreme Court decisions, the threat to our democracy posed by unlimited sums of money in politics, the growing inequality of wealth and income, and the rise of political extremism on the right and its threat to women's rights. New to this edition is the author's 2015 Harrod Lecture titled, "Economic Inequality, Distributive Justice, and Democracy." Jeffko brings logical precision and a lucid style to the study of ethics, blending powerful scholarship with readability.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633884410
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/12/2018
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	575
Product dimensions:	6.09(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.22(d)

About the Author

 

Walter G. Jeffko is professor of philosophy at Fitchburg State College, where he has received a Presidential Award and three Distinguished Service Awards for outstanding achievement. He is a recognized authority on the philosophy of John Macmurray. His publications include three previous editions of Contemporary Ethical Issues and A Personalistic Theory of Human Nature and Value.

Read an Excerpt

Preface to the Fourth Edition
(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Contemporary Ethical Issues"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Walter G. Jeffko.
Excerpted by permission of Prometheus Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Preface to the Fourth Edition 9

Preface to the Third Edition 13

Preface to the Second Edition 17

Preface to the First Edition 21

1 Person, Reason, and Value 25

A Crisis of Values 25

Person as Communicative Agent 29

The Mutuality of the Personal 29

The Agency of the Personal 32

Person as Rational Agent 35

Instrumental and Aesthetic Value 41

2 Moral Value, Intentionality, and Community 49

The Principle of Intentionality 50

The Principle of Community 64

3 Suicide and the Right to Die 77

Definitions of Suicide 78

Arguments against Suicide 84

Arguments for Suicide 95

Community, Justice, and Suicide 101

4 Abortion, Personhood, and Community 105

Ontology of the Fetus 106

Moral Implications 124

Abortion and the Law 133

The Abortion Pill and Embryonic Stem-Cell Research 140

5 Euthanasia: A Reinterpretation 151

Definitions of Euthanasia 152

Conventional Types of Euthanasia 154

Direct and Indirect Euthanasia 160

6 The Death Penalty and Purposes of Punishment 179

Punishment in General 180

The Death Penalty 193

7 Privacy, Private Property, and Justice 223

Personhood and Privacy 224

Privacy and the Supreme Court 232

Privacy and Society 240

8 The Personalist Society, Community, and Justice 253

Historical Background: Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant 254

Macmurray's Constructive Democracy 258

Rawls's Political Liberalism 262

Liberalism and Two Political Controversies 284

Concluding Synthesis 295

9 The Moral Treatment of Animals 299

Western Civilization and Animals 300

Toward a Synthesis 312

10 Affirmative Action and Justice 321

Discrimination and Prejudice 321

Affirmative Action and the Law: A History 325

An Ethics of Affirmative Action 343

Arguments for Affirmative Action 351

11 Community and the Environmental Crisis 361

The Environmental Crisis 362

Ethics and the Environment 380

A Personalist Synthesis 389

12 The Moral Treatment of Civilians in War: A Personalist Interpretation 403

Conventional Theories of War 404

A Personalist Theory 424

13 Economic Inequality, Distributive Justice, and Democracy 447

Distributive Justice: A Select History 448

Community, Person, and Distributive Justice 459

Notes 477

Select Bibliography 533

Index 557