James P. Sterba

Philosophers who hold that religious considerations should play some role in public debate over fundamental issues have criticized Rawls’s ideal of public reason for being too restrictive in generally ruling out such considerations. In response, Rawls has modified his ideal so as to explicitly allow a role for religious considerations in public debate (others, such as Robert Audi, have also offered accounts of public reason along similar lines). Nevertheless, some critics of Rawls’s ideal of public reason, such as Nicholas Wolterstorff, remain unsatisfied. In this paper, I will argue that once Rawls’s ideal of public reason is correctly interpreted, it will be possible to reconcile that ideal with much of the role its critics want religion to have in public debate.

This book conveys the breadth and interconnectedness of questions of justice - a rarity in contemporary moral and political philosophy. James P. Sterba argues that a minimal notion of rationality requires morality, and that a minimal libertarian morality requires the welfare and equal opportunity endorsee by welfare liberals and the equality endorsed by socialists, as well as a full feminist agenda. Feminist, racial, homosexual, and multicultural justice, are also shown to be mutually supporting. The author further shows the compatibility between anthropocentric and biocentric environmental ethics, as between just war and pacifist theories. Finally, he spells out when normal politics, legal protest, civil disobedience, revolutionary action, and criminal disobedience are morally permitted by justice for here and now. This highly original and potentially controversial book is ideal for courses in moral and political philosophy, applied ethics, women's studies, environmental studies, and peace studies.

I show how Jan Narveson’s critique fails to unseat my central argument that harm cuts both ways in our assumed idealized conflict situations, such that sometimes the poor harm the rich and sometimes the rich harm the poor. I further show how this supports my overall argument that libertarianism has gone over the brink into the waiting arms of welfare liberals and socialists. I also reject the; other reasons that Narveson provides for not recognizing the welfare rights of distant peoples and future generations which are independent of my argument about harm.

Philosophy: The Big Questions occupies a unique positionamong introductory texts in philosophy. Designed for asingle-semester introductory course in philosophy, it includes bothclassic readings in philosophy and newer articles. Presents, in one volume, canonical and contemporary works inethics, metaphysics, philosophy of religion, andepistemology. Topics discussed include knowledge, religion, freedom,morality, and the meaning of life. Serves as a comprehensive and compelling introduction tophilosophy. Together with traditional readings it also presentsnon-traditional, feminist eadings from a continentalperspectives.

This book combines the two most common approaches used to introduce students or general readers to ethics: the historical and the applied. Using these approaches, Sterba examines traditional ethical theories and disagreements, exploring Aristotelian, Kantian, and utilitarian ethics, as well as their contemporary defenders. But rather than focusing on formal aspects of these views, Sterba applies the best practical arguments from each of these perspectives to a variety of moral problems, such as sexual harassment, affirmative action, and international terrorism and the second Iraqi war

_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

As with the first edition, Utilitarian, Kantian, and Aristotelian viewpoints are all well represented here, and this second edition features updated sections throughout—including eighteen new readings—and an entirely new section on multiculturalism. Presents students with a unique focus on three main challenges to ethics: feminism, environmentalism, and multiculturalism Pedagogical focus on the 'big questions' motivates student interest Collects readings on all key traditional theoretical and practical questions in ethics

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.

Racial preferences are among the most contentious issues in our society, touching on fundamental questions of fairness and the proper role of racial categories in government action. Now two contemporary philosophers, in a lively debate, lay out the arguments on each side. Carl Cohen, a key figure in the University of Michigan Supreme Court cases, argues that racial preferences are morally wrong--forbidden by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and explicitly banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He also contends that such preferences harm society in general, damage the universities that use them, and undermine the minorities they were intended to serve. James P. Sterba counters that, far from being banned by the Constitution and the civil rights acts, affirmative action is actually mandated by law in the pursuit of a society that is racially and sexually just. The same Congress that adopted the 14th Amendment, he notes, passed race-specific laws that extended aid to blacks. Indeed, there are various kinds of affirmative action--compensation for past discrimination, remedial measures aimed at current discrimination, the guarantee of diversity--and Sterba reviews the Supreme Court cases that build a constitutional foundation for each. Affirmative action, he argues, favors qualified minority candidates, not unqualified ones. Both authors offer concluding comment on the University of Michigan cases decided in 2003. Half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, issues pertaining to racial discrimination continue to grip American society. Ideal for courses in political, social, ethical, and legal philosophy, this penetrating debate explores the philosophical and legal arguments on all sides of affirmative action, but also reveals the passions that drive the issue to the forefront of public life.

Aristotelian ethics, Kantian ethics, and utilitarian ethics have been for some time now the main options within ethics, and the central task over the years has been to determine which of the three is right. Is this book yet another attempt to fulfill this same old task? Not at all. Sterba argues that in their ongoing attempts to put forward for general consideration the most morally defensible versions of their views, advocates of Aristotelian ethics, Kantian ethics, and utilitarian ethics have jettisoned much of what had originally distinguished their theories from each other. The upshot is that, in their current most morally defensible formulations, Aristotelian ethics, Kantian ethics, and utilitarian ethics no longer differ in the practical requirements they endorse. This makes the resolution of moral problems far easier. Sterba drives home his claims by taking up some of the most challenging and important moral problems of our time--sexual harassment, affirmative action, and international terrorism and Iraqi War II. This book is an ideal supplementary text for courses in introductory ethics, history of ethics, contemporary moral problems, and various applied ethics courses. Featuring a lucid writing style and coverage of current moral issues, it is also captivating reading for general readers.

Ethics: Classical Western Texts in Feminist and Multicultural Perspectives offers students a unique introduction to ethics by integrating the historical development of Western moral philosophy with both feminist and multicultural approaches. Engaging and accessible, it provides an introductory sampling of several of the classical works of the Western tradition in ethics and then situates these readings within feminist and multicultural perspectives so that they can be better understood and evaluated in our contemporary environment. While some of the non-Western works parallel the views defended in the Western works, others question the Western perspectives. Confucius, Jorge Valadez, Ward Churchill, Moshoeshoe II, and Eagle Man present multicultural perspectives to the works of Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Sartre, Rawls, MacIntyre, Korsgaard, and others. Noted feminists Christine de Pizan, Simone de Beauvoir, Carol Gilligan, Annette Baier, Susan Okin, and Rosemarie Radford Ruether also offer alternative views. Ideal for courses in introduction to ethics, history of ethics, and feminist ethics, Ethics: Classical Western Texts in Feminist and Multicultural Perspectives is also intriguing reading for interested general readers.

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.

Most contemporary moral and political philosophers would like to have an argument showing that morality is rationally required. In From Rationality to Equality, James P. Sterba provides just such an argument and further shows that morality, so justified, requires substantial equality and is preferable to egoism. Sterba defends his two-part argument against recent critics, and shows how it is preferable not only to alternative attempts to justify morality, but also to alternative attempts to show that morality leads to a right to welfare and/or to equality.

Are the political ideals of liberty and equality compatible? This question is of central and continuing importance in political philosophy, moral philosophy, and welfare economics. In this book, two distinguished philosophers take up the debate. Jan Narveson argues that a political ideal of negative liberty is incompatible with any substantive ideal of equality, while James P. Sterba argues that Narveson's own ideal of negative liberty is compatible, and in fact leads to the requirements of a substantive ideal of equality. Of course, they cannot both be right. Thus, the details of their arguments about the political ideal of negative liberty and its requirements will determine which of them is right. Engagingly and accessibly written, their debate will be of value to all who are interested in the central issue of what are the practical requirements of a political ideal of liberty

IStephen Darwall is one of the few contemporary philosophers who, like myself, claims to have provided a conclusive argument in favor of morality over egoism. As a result, Darwall’s essay on my book,See this issue of The Journal of Ethics.From Rationality to Equality, provides me with the marvelous opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of our different approaches to providing just such a defense of morality, an opportunity for which I am very grateful.Darwall begins with a fairly accurate summary of one of my two arguments against ethical egoism, the argument that assumes that egoists are interested in providing a non-question-begging defense of the view. The other argument against egoism does not make that assumption but still manages to show that egoism is question-begging nonetheless. Unfortunately, Darwall does not consider this second argument.I assume that Darwall just overlooked this argument. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why he would repeatedly menti ..

The Pursuit of Justice: A Personal Philosophical History is a collection of renowned scholar and philosopher James P. Sterba’s finest works - essays spanning the full spectrum of his illustrious career along with new scholarship on the enduring struggle for justice we face as a society, and as individuals in the modern world. That struggle, or pursuit, may be ongoing, but – as this book details – it has come a long way, and that progress, however frustrating it may be to obtain and secure, is a testament to the work to which scholars like Sterba have devoted their lives and careers