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19Character, liability, and morally unreachable agentsCriminal Justice Ethics 26 (2): 16-28. 2007.
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19Judaic Sources and Western Thought: Jerusalem's Enduring Presence (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2011.The essays in this volume bring into relief the distinctly Judaic origins of many of them and explicate how they remain valuable resources for moral and ...
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18Luck and retributionPhilosophy 74 (4): 535-555. 1999.The main claims are the following. If we keep before us the distinction between the justification of punishment and its aims, we see that retribution is not an aim of punishment, and that there is a central place for retributivist considerations in the justification of punishment. Justifications based upon aims or consequentialist considerations suffer from a serious epistemic vulnerability not shared by retributivism. There are ethically sound sentiments that underwrite retributivist justificat…Read more
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17Civics, Policy, and DemoralizationCriminal Justice Ethics 36 (1): 25-44. 2017.Civics can be distinguished from policy. Civics concerns basic principles and institutions of political and legal order. Policy concerns specific ways in which particular ends are pursued by the st...
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17Divine Command Ethics: Jewish and Christian Perspectives. By Michael J. HarrisHeythrop Journal 49 (3): 516-517. 2008.
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16The Routledge Handbook of Criminal Justice Ethics (edited book)Routledge. 2016.The enormous financial cost of criminal justice has motivated increased scrutiny and recognition of the need for constructive change, but what of the ethical costs of current practices and policies? Moreover, if we seriously value the principles of liberal democracy then there is no question that the ethics of criminal justice are everybody’s business, concerns for the entire society. _The Routledge Handbook of Criminal Justice Ethics_ brings together international scholars to explore the most s…Read more
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15This book offers an introduction to the philosophical issues of criminal justice ethics in a way suitable for students of criminology and criminal justice. It links philosophical concepts with empirical research in criminology and introduces criminal justice ethics, in the context of political and legal order.
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13Theism, Blame And PerfectionHeythrop Journal 41 (2): 141-153. 2000.Blame and also punishment do not reach many agents in the sense that many agents are not motivated to ethically self‐correct, and in fact, may be worsened by these practices. The main reasons agents may not be reached by them are that the agent's second nature may make inaccessible to him a sound appreciation of ethical considerations, and the fixity of mature character may make ethical self‐correction practically impossible. Still, when they are ethically rationalized, blame and punishment seem…Read more
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11Law, Reason, and Morality in Medieval Jewish Philosophy: Saadia Gaon, Bahya Ibn Pakuda, and Moses MaimonidesOxford University Press. 2010.A detailed study of the moral philosophy of medieval Jewish thinkers Saadia Gaon, Bahya ibn Pakuda, and Moses Maimonides. Jon Jacobs emphasizes their distinctive contributions, emphasises the shared rational emphasis of their approach to Torah, and draws out resonances with contemporary moral philosophy.
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8Being True to the World: Moral Realism and Practical WisdomPeter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers. 1990.This book begins with a critique of moral relativism and proceeds to develop a realist account of practical wisdom. The central claims are that there are objective moral facts and that knowledge of these facts can be action-guiding. The justification for these claims involves explaining the role of imagination in moral judgment and action and also showing how a realist approach to morality enables us to better account for immorality, revealing it to involve ignorance, error or falsification. The…Read more
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8Ethics a–ZEdinburgh University Press. 2005.Jacobs introduces the issues, language, concepts and positions central to ethical theorizing. Entries range from antiquity to the present and basic to advance. Cross-referencing allows readers to explore topics in depth. Items explain complex issues of normative ethics, metaethics and moral psychology in non-technical language.
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8Note From the EditorCriminal Justice Ethics 32 (1): 19-19. 2013.Gordon Lloyd's article takes up issues of constitutional interpretation by the Supreme Court, examining the arguments in some key, early Court decisions. The discussion does not address criminal ju...
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7Note from the EditorCriminal Justice Ethics 40 (1): 1-1. 2021.In this issue of the journal and in the August 2021 issue we are including some articles concerning Artificial Intelligence and ethics, and computer technology and ethics more broadly. Developments...
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7Practical realism and moral psychologyGeorgetown University Press. 1995.In this original study, Jonathan Jacobs provides a new account of ethical realism that combines both abstract meta-ethical issues defining the debate on realism and concrete topics in moral psychology. Jacobs argues that practical reasoners can both understand the ethical significance of facts and be motivated to act by that understanding. In that sense, objective considerations are prescriptive. In his discussion of the theory of practical realism, he extends themes and claims originating in Ar…Read more
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6Jonathan Jacobs examines the injustice of incarceration in the U.S. and U.K., both during incarceration and upon release into civil society. Situated at the intersection of criminology and political philosophy, Jacobs's focus is on moral reasoning, and he argues that the current state of incarceration is antithetical to the project of liberal democracy, as it strips incarcerated people of their agency. He advocates for reforms through a renewed commitment to the values and principles of liberal …Read more
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5The Nature of Value: Axiological Investigations (review)Review of Metaphysics 50 (2): 410-410. 1996.This book is a systematic defense of a nonnaturalist, intuitionist moral realism. It supplies an account of moral facts according to which moral value is supervenient, undefinable, and nonreducible. The author also argues that "we must accept without proof some claim to the effect that a given thing is intrinsically good or bad if we are to prove that anything at all is so". The project is explicitly in the tradition of philosophers such as Brentano, Moore, and Ross. The author focuses on develo…Read more
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2Note from the EditorCriminal Justice Ethics 40 (2): 85-85. 2021.As mentioned in the April 2021 issue of the journal, we are including some articles on Artificial Intelligence and ethics, and computer technology and ethics more broadly. In February 2020, the Ins...
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Moral education, skills of civility, and virtue in the public sphereIn James Arthur (ed.), Virtues in the Public Sphere: Citizenship, Civic Friendship and Duty, Routledge Press. 2018.
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Teleology and Essence: An Account of the Nature of Organisms and PersonsDissertation, University of Pennsylvania. 1983.The main claim is that there is a fundamental and ineliminable relationship between teleology and essence in those things which have life-histories, whether organic or personal. The dissertation is divided into two Parts. In the first Part necessary and sufficient conditions for something's being an organism are formulated. In the second Part this is done for persons. ;What it is to be an organism is explained in terms of the entity being so constituted as to undergo a multi-stage, internally-re…Read more
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Character, punishment, and the liberal orderIn Alberto Masala & Jonathan Webber (eds.), From Personality to Virtue: Essays on the Philosophy of Character, Oxford University Press Uk. 2016.
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |