Many declare the debate about abortion to be hopelessly polarised, between conservatives and liberals, between forces religious and secular. In this book Mumford upends this received wisdom and challenges consensus, arguing that many dominant attitudes and argument fail to take into account the particular way human beings 'emerge' in the world.

Many declare the debate about abortion to be hopelessly polarised, between conservatives and liberals, between forces religious and secular. In this book Mumford upends this received wisdom and challenges consensus, arguing that many dominant attitudes and argument fail to take into account the particular way human beings 'emerge' in the world.

Emmanuel Levinas has proven a major figure in twentieth-century phenomenology and ethics, and his work has influenced not only Jewish but also Christian ethical thought. However, Levinas has recently been the subject of trenchant critique by his fellow French philosopher, Jean-Yves Lacoste. Lacoste objects to Levinas’s construal of intersubjectivity as fundamentally ethical: essentially, that we only instantiate our humanity when we take responsibility for the Other. This smacks for Lacoste of ‘unworldliness’, and is thus phenomenologically inadequate, since it extirpates from (...) the domain of elementary experiences everything that does not constitute morality. This raises key questions: how best to interpret Lacoste’s challenge; how successful that challenge is, i.e. whether anything in Levinas’s project survive it; and, if so, how best to understand Levinas’s relevance for Christian ethics. I will address all these issues, contending that, contra Lacoste, Levinas’s position does stand up to inspection at one key juncture. I claim, on phenomenological grounds, that it tells us something of vital importance about some special experiences of obligation, some range of moral encounters: that which arises when the subject, as moral agent, finds himself in an immediate, unbidden, dyadic encounter with the other person. (shrink)

In Vexed, James Mumford tackles the polarization of civil society across the democratic West, taking a fresh look at the existential questions and "hot button" issues that are an essential part of the politics of the Left and Right. In examining issues like the "right-to-die" movement and assisted suicide, family values and economic injustice, sexual liberation and consent, gun-control and abortion, the environment and technology, criminal justice and reform, Mumford questions the basic assumptions of our political groups. His challenge is (...) simple: "Why should believing strongly about one topic mean the automatic adoption of so many others?" With this refreshing and eye-opening book, James Mumford, a public thinker and independent commentator, has written an essential and provocative account that will appeal to anyone of independent thought, and a welcome call for new reflection on the moral issues most relevant to our modern way of life." -- Amazon.com. (shrink)