Good Sport argues that the values and meanings embedded within sport provide the guidance we need to make difficult decisions about fairness and performance-enhancing technologies. By examining how sport's history, rules and practices identify and celebrate natural talent and dedication, the book illuminates not just what we champion in the athletic arena but more broadly what we value in human achievement.

Thomas Murray's graceful and humane book illuminates one of the most morally complex areas of everyday life: the relationship between parents and children. What do children mean to their parents, and how far do parental obligations go? What, from the beginning of life to its end, is the worth of a child? Ethicist Murray leaves the rarefied air of abstract moral philosophy in order to reflect on the moral perplexities of ordinary life and ordinary people. Observing that abstract moral (...) terms such as altruism and selfishness can be buried in the everyday doings of families, he maintains that ethical theory needs a richer description than it now has of the moral life of parents and children. How far should adults go in their quest for children? What options are available to women who do not want to bear a child now? Should couples be allowed to reject a child because of genetic disability or "wrong" gender? How can we weigh the competing claims of the genetic and the rearing parents to a particular child? _The Worth of a Child_ couples impressive learning with a conversational style. Only by getting down to cases, Murray insists, can we reach moral conclusions that are unsentimental, farsighted, and just. In an era of intense public and private acrimony about the place and meaning of "family values," his practical wisdom about extraordinary difficult moral issues offers compelling reading for both experienced and prospective parents, as well as for ethicists, social and behavioral scientists, and legal theorists. (shrink)

"We must turn to the Euthydemus if we are to understand both Plato's earlier and his more mature work. Thomas Chance's book is an indispensible tool for penetrating to the sources of Plato's thinking on the nature of philosophy. This is the most impressive treatment of the dialogue so far available to scholars, and the interpretations offered will surely be the starting point for all future discussions."--G. B. Kerferd, Emeritus, University of Manchester "A sensitive and well-informed study of an (...) important and much neglected dialogue."--R. E. Allen, Northwestern University "A sensitive and well-informed study of an important and much neglected dialogue."--R. E. Allen "Chance's book [will be] an indispensable tool for penetrating to the sources of Plato's thinking.... The interpretations offered will surely be the starting point for all future discussions."--George Kerferd. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was immensely influential and, counter to most expectations, also very well read. An essential new reference tool for those interested in his thinking, Nietzsche’s Philosophical Context identifies the chronology and huge range of philosophical books that engaged him. Rigorously examining the scope of this reading, Thomas H. Brobjer consulted over two thousand volumes in Nietzsche’s personal library, as well as his book bills, library records, journals, letters, and publications. This meticulous investigation also considers many of the annotations (...) in his books. In arguing that Nietzsche’s reading often constituted the starting point for, or counterpoint to, much of his own thinking and writing, Brobjer’s study provides scholars with fresh insight into how Nietzsche worked and thought; to which questions and thinkers he responded; and by which of them he was influenced. The result is a new and much more contextual understanding of Nietzsche's life and thinking. (shrink)

Deciding whether genetic differences among individuals are morally relevant to health insurance requires us to ask, What kind of good is health care? and, What principles should govern its distribution? There are good reasons to doubt that “actuarial fairness” is an adequate description of genuine fairness in health insurance.

One of the central, abiding, and unresolved questions in environmental ethics has focused on the criterion for moral considerability or practical respect. In this essay, I call that question itself into question and argue that the search for this criterion should be abandoned because (1) it presupposes the ethical legitimacy of the Western project of planetary domination, (2) the philosophical methods that are andshould be used to address the question properly involve giving consideration in a root sense to everything, (3) (...) the history of the question suggests that it must be kept open, and (4) our deontic experience, the original source of ethical obligations, requires approaching all others, of all sorts, with a mindfulness that is clean of any a priori criterion of respect and positive value. The good work that has been doneon the question should be reconceived as having established rules for the normal, daily consideration of various kinds of others. Giving consideration in the root sense should be separated from giving high regard or positive value to what is considered. Overall, in this essay I argue that universal consideration—giving attention to others of all sorts, with the goal of ascertaining what, if any, direct ethical obligations arise from relating with them—should be adopted as one of the central constitutive principles of practical reasonableness. (shrink)

This scenario-based study examines the perceptions of university students in the United States and Australia regarding the ethics and acceptability of various sales practices. Study results indicate several significant differences between U.S. and Australian university students regarding the perceptions of ethical and acceptable sales practices. These differences centered on company-salesperson and salesperson-customer relationships. The findings are significant for the employer, and have consequences for customers and competitors. They also have implications for recruiters and managers of salespeople, academics with an interest (...) in understanding cross-national differences in sales ethics, and educators preparing students for future careers as business professionals. (shrink)

Which Trinity? : the doctrine of the Trinity -- In contemporary philosophical theology -- Whose monotheism? : Jesus and his Abba -- Doctrine and analysis -- "Whoever raised Jesus from the dead" : Robert Jenson on the identity of the Triune God -- Moltmann's perichoresis : either too much or not enough -- "Eternal functional subordination" : considering a recent evangelical proposal -- Holy love and divine aseity in the theology of John Zizioulas -- Moving forward : theses on the (...) future of Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

The standard approach to the ethics of reproductive technologies starts and ends with the parents’ procreative liberty. There's much more to think about. We should start with the relationship between parents and children.

I adapt an old example of Frank Jackson's, in order to show that it is not only possible that actions with different individual agents are sub-optimal when each is not, but that they are impermissible when each is not, and blameworthy when each is not.

Even with the very best intentions , Western culture’s approach to wilderness and wildness, the otherness of nature, tends to be one of imperialistic domination and appropriation. Nevertheless, in spite of Western culture’s attempt to gain total control over nature by imprisoning wildness in wilderness areas, which are meant to be merely controlled “simulations” of wildness, a real wildness, a real otherness, can still be found in wilderness reserves . This wildness can serve as the literal ground for the subversion (...) of the imperium, and consequently as the basis for the practical establishment of and residence in what WendeII Berry has called the “landscape of harmony.” Here all land becomes wild sacred space that humans consciously come to reinhabit. In this subversive potential lies the most fundamental justification for the legal establishment of wilderness reserves. (shrink)

Cheating evolves constantly. Dozens of athletes were barred from the Winter Olympics for taking banned substances. Gene doping is on the horizon. Questions have arisen about which athletes count as “female.” What does it take to keep sports fair? And what does fairness require?

Traditional approaches to measurement of violations of academic integrity may overestimate the magnitude and severity of cheating and confound panic with planned cheating. Differences in the severity and level of premeditation of academic integrity violations have largely been unexamined. Results of a study based on a combined sample of business students showed that students are more likely to commit minor cheating offenses and engage in panic-based cheating as compared to serious and planned cheating offenses. Results also indicated there is a (...) significant interaction between severity and type of cheating. We hypothesized serious and planned cheating offenses would be related to justifications and found the largest differences were between panic and planned. Finally, panic and minor cheating were associated with two self-control-related personality traits. Implications for cheating research are discussed. (shrink)