James P. Sterba

In this paper, I endorse the decision of the Supreme Court of the U.S. in Bollinger v. Grutter (2003). I argue that the educational benefits of diversity are an important enough state interest to justify the use of racial preferences and that, especially due to the absence of race-neutral alternatives, this use of racial preferences is narrowly tailored to that state interest. However, I also indicate that I am willing to give up my support for diversity affirmative action in the U.S. for a $25 billion a year education program to put in place a quality educational system K through 12 for every child in the country. Unfortunately, I have yet to find any critics of affirmative action who are also willing to support such a program.

Using yet untapped resources from moral and political philosophy, this book seeks to answer the question of whether an all good God who is presumed to be all powerful is logically compatible with the degree and amount of moral and natural evil that exists in our world. It is widely held by theists and atheists alike that it may be logically impossible for an all good, all powerful God to create a world with moral agents like ourselves that does not also have at least some moral evil in it. James P. Sterba focuses on the further question of whether God is logically compatible with the degree and amount of moral and natural evil that exists in our world. The negative answer he provides marks a new stage in the age-old debate about God's existence.

Charles Darwin questions whether conflicts between species palpably captured by the conflict between Ichneumonidae and the caterpillars on which they prey could be compatible with the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God. He also questioned whether the suffering of millions of lower animals throughout our almost endless prehistory could be compatible with an all-good, all-powerful God. In this paper, I show that these two problems of natural evil that Darwin raised in his work can be resolved so as to present no objection to theism once it is recognized what the moral principles are that should govern our relationship to the natural world and analogously should govern God’s relationship to the natural world.

_Social and Political Philosophy_ introduces some of the most important topics in contemporary political philosophy and questions whether these can be accommodated within the framework of liberal theory. It consists of specially written essays by prominent figures in social and political philosophy. Each essay carefully considers both the theoretical and practical problems of a major topic. Traditional perspectives are balanced with new challenges. Topics include: * Moral Methodology * Libertarianism * Socialism * Lesbian and Gay Perspectives * Feminism * Racial and Multicultural Perspectives * Rationality * Welfare Liberalism * Environmentalism * Virtue Ethics and Community * Just War Theory and Pacifism * Civil Disobedience

Skeptical theists hold that we should be skeptical about our ability to know the reasons that God would have for permitting evil, at least in particular cases. They argue for their view by setting aside actions that are wrong in themselves and focusing their attention on actions that are purportedly right or wrong simply in terms of their consequences. However, I argue in this paper that once skeptical theists are led to take into account actions that are wrong in themselves, as they must, they cannot escape the conclusion that there is a logical contradiction between the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God and what would have to be God’s permission of the significant and horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions found in our world.

Consider the case of Gary Gyges, an otherwise normal human being who, for reasons of personal gain, has embezzled $300,000 while working at People's National Bank and is in the process of escaping to the South Sea Islands where he will have the good fortune to live a pleasant life protected by the local authorities and untroubled by any qualms of conscience. If we assume that in the society from which Gyges is fleeing moral standards are generally observed, Gyges's behavior would be obviously immoral. Is it possible, however, that Gyges, a rational person, may have had perfectly consistent reasons for acting immorally? Is it also possible that Gyges may not have had any moral reasons at all to refrain from his act of embezzlement?

Philosophy: The Big Questions occupies a unique position among introductory texts in philosophy. Designed for a single-semester introductory course in philosophy, it includes both classic readings in philosophy and newer articles. Presents, in one volume, canonical and contemporary works in ethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and epistemology. Topics discussed include knowledge, religion, freedom, morality, and the meaning of life. Serves as a comprehensive and compelling introduction to philosophy. Together with traditional readings it also presents non-traditional, feminist eadings from a continental perspectives.

The only textbook devoted to these basic challenges to ethicsIntroduces some of the problems of traditional ethics and solutions to themExamines each of the challenges separatelySuggests how traditional ethics can meet the challengesThis book's author argues that traditional ethics has yet to face up to three important challenges that come from environmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism. This failure to face up to these challenges has meant that no matter how successful traditional ethics has been at dealing with the problems it recognizes, it has failed to deal with the possibility that its solutions to these problems are biased in favour of humans, biased in favour of men, and biased in favour of Western culture. Failure to deal with these challenges has clearly put the justification of traditional ethics into question. Thus those concerned with the justification of traditional ethics have no alternative but to try to determine how these challenges can be met. To meet the challenges, Sterba argues that traditional ethics must incorporate conlfict resolution principles that favour nonhumans over humans in a significant range of cases, must rule out gendered family structures and implement an ideal of androgyny, and must endorse an ethics that is secular in character and one that can survive a wide-ranging comparative evaluation of both Western and non-Western moral ideals and cultures.Readership: This text is indended for students in introductory ethics and moral problems courses and lay readers interested in evironmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism.