In this major book Martha Nussbaum, one of the most innovative and influential philosophical voices of our time, proposes a kind of feminism that is genuinely international, argues for an ethical underpinning to all thought about development planning and public policy, and dramatically moves beyond the abstractions of economists and philosophers to embed thought about justice in the concrete reality of the struggles of poor women. Nussbaum argues that international political and economic thought must be sensitive to gender difference as (...) a problem of justice, and that feminist thought must begin to focus on the problems of women in the third world. Taking as her point of departure the predicament of poor women in India, she shows how philosophy should undergird basic constitutional principles that should be respected and implemented by all governments, and used as a comparative measure of quality of life across nations. (shrink)

Moral Theory explores some of the most historically important and currently debated moral theories about the nature of the right and good. After introducing students in the first chapter to some of the main aims and methods of evaluating a moral theory, the remaining chapters are devoted to an examination of various moral theories including the divine command theory, moral relativism, natural law theory, Kant's moral theory, moral pluralism, virtue ethics, and moral particularism.

Gambling on God brings together a superb collection of new and classic essays that provide the first sustained analysis of Pascal's Wager and the idea of an infinite utility as well as the first in-depth look at moral objections to the Wager.

The central thesis of Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise is that the state not only can permit freedom of philosophizing without endangering piety or the public peace, but that it must do so if it is not to destroy piety and the public peace. Spinoza’s argument is not limited to religious toleration, but is an argument for freedom of philosophizing generally. Nevertheless, freedom of philosophizing in religion is the central case. In making such an argument, he contributed greatly toward the transformation of (...) Western culture with respect to toleration and religious liberty. As an historian, I want to understand how this transformation came about and what role Spinoza played in it. As a philosopher, I also want to know whether any of the arguments philosophers made in favor of religious toleration deserved to be effective in bringing about this transformation. (shrink)

000000001. Introduction Call a theory of the good—be it moral or prudential—aggregative just in case (1) it recognizes local (or location-relative) goodness, and (2) the goodness of states of affairs is based on some aggregation of local goodness. The locations for local goodness might be points or regions in time, space, or space-time; or they might be people, or states of nature.1 Any method of aggregation is allowed: totaling, averaging, measuring the equality of the distribution, measuring the minimum, etc.. Call (...) a theory of the good finitely additive just in case it is aggregative, and for any finite set of locations it aggregates by adding together the goodness at those locations. Standard versions of total utilitarianism typically invoke finitely additive value theories (with people as locations). A puzzle can arise when finitely additive value theories are applied to cases involving an infinite number of locations (people, times, etc.). Suppose, for example, that temporal locations are the locus of value, and that time is discrete, and has no beginning or end.2 How would a finitely additive theory (e.g., a temporal version of total utilitarianism) judge the following two worlds? Goodness at Locations (e.g. times) w1:..., 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, ..... w2:..., 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, ..... Example 1 At each time w1 contains 2 units of goodness and w2 contains only 1. Intuitively, we claim, if the locations are the same in each world, finitely additive theorists will want to claim that w1 is better than w2. But it's not clear how they could coherently hold this view. For using standard mathematics the sum of each is the same infinity, and so there seems to be no basis for claiming that one is better than the other.3 (Appealing to Cantorian infinities is of no help here, since for any Cantorian infinite N, 2xN=1xN.). (shrink)

Traditional utilitarianism, when applied, implies a surprising prediction about the future, viz., that all experience of pleasure and pain must end once and for all, or infinitely dwindle. Not only is this implication surprising, it should render utilitarianism unacceptable to persons who hold any of the following theses: that evaluative propositions may not imply descriptive, factual propositions; that evaluative propositions may not imply contingent factual propositions about the future; that there will always exist beings who experience pleasure or pain.

At the heart of modern liberalism is an ideal of religious equality, according to which religious minorities should be granted the same civil and political rights as the religious majority. So basic is this ideal to modern liberalism that liberals often take it for granted. This is a mistake: in fact the case in favor of religious equality is far from obvious. ;In order to stir liberals from their complacency, I define a stark challenge to religious equality, one I call (...) "the challenge of salvific exclusivism." Salvific exclusivists are people who believe that salvation lies in their religion alone; thus they believe that religious error threatens the eternal welfare of their fellow citizens. Religious error, though, flourishes in a regime of religious equality. Why should salvific exclusivists support such a regime? ;This is no idle challenge. I argue that the New Testament itself strongly supports salvific exclusivism; prima facie, nothing less than the compatibility of Christianity and liberalism is at stake. I also show that in a wide range of cases familiar pragmatic arguments offered in favor of religious equality fail to meet the challenge of salvific exclusivism. The same is true of consequentialist arguments generally. But if these fail, what might succeed? ;The answer I propose lies in an ideal of respect for mature human agency. I argue we can learn about the content of this ideal by examining the plight of children, for children are not yet mature human agents. This examination reveals an obligation to make our grounds for imposing burdens on our fellow citizens publicly accessible. I then argue, in a non-skeptical fashion, that the most commonly held grounds for religious belief are publicly inaccessible. Not all grounds for religious belief are publicly inaccessible, however; thus a degree of skepticism is necessary toward these. A respect-based case for religious equality, I conclude, has a more complex structure than it is usually thought to have. I end by discussing the implications of this complexity. (shrink)