Ethics for Adversaries: The Morality of Roles in Public and Professional Life

Applbaum, Arthur Isak

ISBN 10: 0691057397 / ISBN 13: 9780691057392

Editore: Princeton University Press, 2000

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Codice articolo wbs4090392777

Riassunto:

The adversary professions-law, business, and government, among others-typically claim a moral permission to violate persons in ways that, if not for the professional role, would be morally wrong. Lawyers advance bad ends and deceive, business managers exploit and despoil, public officials enforce unjust laws, and doctors keep confidences that, if disclosed, would prevent harm. Ethics for Adversaries is a philosophical inquiry into arguments that are offered to defend seemingly wrongful actions performed by those who occupy what Montaigne called "necessary offices". Applbaum begins by examining the career of Charles-Henri Sanson, who is appointed executioner of Paris by Louis XVI and serves the punitive needs of the ancien regime for decades. Come the French Revolution, the King's Executioner becomes the king's executioner, and he ministers with professional detachment to each defeated political faction throughout the Terror and its aftermath. By exploring one extraordinary role and the arguments that can be offered in its defense, Applbaum raises unsettling doubts about arguments in defense of less sanguinary professions and their practices. To justify harmful acts, adversaries appeal to arguments about the rules of the game, fair play, consent, the social construction of actions and actors, good outcomes in equilibrium, and the legitimate authority of institutions. Applbaum concludes that these arguments are weaker than supposed and do not morally justify much of the violation that professionals and public officials inflict. Institutions and the roles they create ordinarily cannot mint moral permissions to do what otherwise would be morally prohibited.

Informazioni sull?autore: Arthur Isak Applbaum is Professor of Ethics and Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Director of Graduate Fellowships in the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Professions.

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Titolo: Ethics for Adversaries: The Morality of ...
Casa editrice: Princeton University Press
Data di pubblicazione: 2000
Legatura: Brossura
Condizione: Very Good