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What Is the Mishnah?: The State of the Question (Jewish Law and Culture Series)
by Shaye J. D. CohenThe Mishnah is the foundational document of rabbinic Judaism—all of rabbinic law, from ancient to modern times, is based on the Talmud, and the Talmud, in turn, is based on the Mishnah. But the Mishnah is also an elusive document; its sources and setting are obscure, as are its genre and purpose.In January 2021 the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies and the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law of the Harvard Law School co-sponsored a conference devoted to the simple yet complicated question: “What is the Mishnah?” Leading scholars from the United States, Europe, and Israel assessed the state of the art in Mishnah studies; and the papers delivered at that conference form the basis of this collection. Learned yet accessible, What Is the Mishnah? gives readers a clear sense of current and future direction of Mishnah studies.
What Is the Point of Moral Philosophy? (Routledge Studies in Ethics and Moral Theory)
by Roger Crisp Ingmar Persson Julian SavulescuOver the last half-century, moral philosophy has taken an applied turn, covering practical issues in areas such as medicine, business, the environment, and many others. But it has largely failed to examine itself. In this volume, a range of distinguished contemporary ethicists, representing many different positions, examine what might be the point, if any, of moral philosophy.Given the deep and apparently intransigent basic disagreements between philosophers, is the discipline able to provide genuinely helpful advice? Is there an agreed methodology for philosophical ethics? Is the truth about ethics such that few people could believe it (perhaps because the truth is so peculiar) or act upon it (because it turns out that ethics is much more demanding than most think)? Perhaps the only philosopher to have addressed these issues head-on has been Ingmar Persson. His important arguments provide a starting point for debate and are examined and discussed by several contributors. But the volume goes beyond Persson’s path-breaking work to clarify the nature of the challenges to philosophical ethics and the variety of responses available.What Is the Point of Moral Philosophy? will be of interest to scholars and students working in all areas of moral philosophy, including applied ethics, metaethics, and normative ethics.
What Is to Be Done? Burning Questions of Our Movement
by Vladimir Ilyich LeninA basic consideration of the conditions and problems in the formation of a vanguard, revolutionary party. Lenin wrote this political pamphlet in 1901, after he had returned to St. Petersburg from three years of Siberian exile for advocating a Marxist revolution against the Tsar, who ruled Russia with an iron hand. In the pamphlet, Lenin argued that only a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries could bring socialism to Russia. He stresses the importance of theory and a revolutionary party guided by that theory. In this, he was at odds with other political groups that advocated a democratic movement toward socialism. He argued against the so-called "Economists," who held that workers were de facto at the forefront of the Marxist movement by virtue of their struggles with their employers over wage issues. In Lenin's view, this amounted to only "trade-union consciousness," which fell far short of the theoretical political consciousness he believed was needed if socialism was to succeed. The pamphlet also calls for a shift of emphasis from local to national work on revolutionary goals, which he would facilitate through communication via an all-Russia political newspaper.
What It Feels Like: Visceral Rhetoric and the Politics of Rape Culture (Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation #27)
by Stephanie R. LarsonWhat It Feels Like interrogates an underexamined reason for our failure to abolish rape in the United States: the way we communicate about it. Using affective and feminist materialist approaches to rhetorical criticism, Stephanie Larson examines how discourses about rape and sexual assault rely on strategies of containment, denying the felt experiences of victims and ultimately stalling broader claims for justice.Investigating anti-pornography debates from the 1980s, Violence Against Women Act advocacy materials, sexual assault forensic kits, public performances, and the #MeToo movement, Larson reveals how our language privileges male perspectives and, more deeply, how it is shaped by systems of power—patriarchy, white supremacy, and heteronormativity as well as masculine commitments to "science" or "evidence." In addition, Larson finds that the culture holds a general mistrust of testimony by women, stereotyping it as "emotional." But she also gives us hope for change, arguing that women’s testimony—the bodily, material expression of violation—is needed to give voice to victims of sexual violence and to present, accurately, the facts of these crimes. Larson makes a case for visceral rhetorics, theorizing them as powerful forms of communication and persuasion.Demonstrating the communicative power of bodily feeling, Larson challenges the long-held commitment to detached, distant, rationalized discourses of sexual harassment and rape. Timely and poignant, the book offers a much-needed corrective to our legal and political discourses.
What It Feels Like: Visceral Rhetoric and the Politics of Rape Culture (Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation)
by Stephanie R. LarsonWinner of the 2022 Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine (ARSTM) Book AwardWinner of the 2022 Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award from the Coalition of Feminist Scholars in the History of Rhetoric and CompositionWhat It Feels Like interrogates an underexamined reason for our failure to abolish rape in the United States: the way we communicate about it. Using affective and feminist materialist approaches to rhetorical criticism, Stephanie Larson examines how discourses about rape and sexual assault rely on strategies of containment, denying the felt experiences of victims and ultimately stalling broader claims for justice.Investigating anti-pornography debates from the 1980s, Violence Against Women Act advocacy materials, sexual assault forensic kits, public performances, and the #MeToo movement, Larson reveals how our language privileges male perspectives and, more deeply, how it is shaped by systems of power—patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, and heteronormativity. Interrogating how these systems work to propagate masculine commitments to “science” and “hard evidence,” Larson finds that US culture holds a general mistrust of testimony by women, stereotyping it as “emotional.” But she also gives us hope for change, arguing that testimonies grounded in the bodily, material expression of violation are necessary for giving voice to victims of sexual violence and presenting, accurately, the scale of these crimes. Larson makes a case for visceral rhetorics, theorizing them as powerful forms of communication and persuasion.Demonstrating the communicative power of bodily feeling, Larson challenges the long-held commitment to detached, distant, rationalized discourses of sexual harassment and rape. Timely and poignant, the book offers a much-needed corrective to our legal and political discourses.
What It Means to Be Human: The Case For The Body In Public Bioethics
by O. Carter SneadA leading expert on public bioethics advocates for a new conception of human identity in American law and policy.The natural limits of the human body make us vulnerable and therefore dependent, throughout our lives, on others. Yet American law and policy disregard these stubborn facts, with statutes and judicial decisions that presume people to be autonomous, defined by their capacity to choose. As legal scholar O. Carter Snead points out, this individualistic ideology captures important truths about human freedom, but it also means that we have no obligations to each other unless we actively, voluntarily embrace them. Under such circumstances, the neediest must rely on charitable care. When it is not forthcoming, law and policy cannot adequately respond.What It Means to Be Human makes the case for a new paradigm, one that better represents the gifts and challenges of being human. Inspired by the insights of Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor, Snead proposes a vision of human identity and flourishing that supports those who are profoundly vulnerable and dependent—children, the disabled, and the elderly. To show how such a vision would affect law and policy, he addresses three complex issues in bioethics: abortion, assisted reproductive technology, and end-of-life decisions. Avoiding typical dichotomies of conservative-versus-liberal and secular-versus-religious, Snead recasts debates over these issues and situates them within his framework of embodiment and dependence. He concludes that, if the law is built on premises that reflect the fully lived reality of life, it will provide support for the vulnerable, including the unborn, mothers, families, and those nearing the end of their lives. In this way, he argues, policy can ensure that people have the care they need in order to thrive.In this provocative and consequential book, Snead rethinks how the law represents human experiences so that it might govern more wisely, justly, and humanely.
What Justice? Whose Justice? Fighting for Fairness in Latin America
by Susan Eva Eckstein Timothy P. Wickham-CrowleyThe essays elucidate how conceptions of justice are socially constructed and contested and historically contingent, shaped by people's values and institutionally grounded in real-life experiences. The contributors offer refreshing new insights that deepen our understanding of social justice as ideology and practice.
What Kind of Death: The Ethics of Determining One’s Own Death (Routledge Research in Applied Ethics)
by Govert den HartoghMany books have been published about physician-assisted death. This book offers a comprehensive and in-depth examination of that subject, but it also extends the discussion to a broader range of end-of-life decisions including suicide, palliative care and sedation until death. In every jurisdiction that has laws permitting some kind of physician-assisted death, a central point of controversy is whether such assistance should only be available to dying patients, or to everyone who wants to end his life. The right to determine the manner and time of one’s own death, however, does not necessarily mean that physicians should be permitted to cooperate in ensuring a quick and peaceful death. In this book, Govert den Hartogh considers the fundamental and practical matters – including concrete issues of legal regulation – related to end-of life decision making. He proposes a two-tiered system. Everyone should have access to humane means of ending his life, if his decision to end it is voluntary, well-considered and durable. But doctors should only participate in a joint action of ending the patient’s life on his request if they also are convinced of acting in the patient’s best interests, in particular by ending intolerable and unrelievable suffering. And perhaps there is reason to restrict that second service to dying patients. The whole argument, however, depends on the extent to which, in both tiers of the system, we can design legal safeguards that will enable us to trust judgments about the requesting person’s request and about his suffering. The book considers much new evidence in regard to this issue. What Kind of Death will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in bioethics, applied ethics, philosophy of law and health law.
What Makes Health Public?
by John CoggonJohn Coggon argues that the important question for analysts in the fields of public health law and ethics is 'what makes health public?' He offers a conceptual and analytic scrutiny of the salient issues raised by this question, outlines the concepts entailed in, or denoted by, the term 'public health' and argues why and how normative analyses in public health are inquiries in political theory. The arguments expose and explain the political claims inherent in key works in public health ethics. Coggon then develops and defends a particular understanding of political liberalism, describing its implications for critical study of public health policies and practices. Covering important works from legal, moral, and political theory, public health, public health law and ethics, and bioethics, this is a foundational text for scholars, practitioners and policy bodies interested in freedoms, rights and responsibilities relating to health.
What Makes Law
by Liam MurphyThis book offers an advanced introduction to central questions in legal philosophy. What factors determine the content of the law in force? What makes a normative system a legal system? How does law beyond the state differ from domestic law? What kind of moral force does law have? These are all questions about the nature of law. The most important existing views are introduced, but the aim is not to survey the existing literature. Rather, this book introduces the subject by stepping back from the fray to sketch the big picture, to show just what is at stake in these old debates. Legal philosophy has become somewhat arid and inward looking. In part this is because the disagreement between the main camps on the important questions is apparently intractable. The main aim of the book is to suggest both a diagnosis and a proper practical response to this situation of intractable disagreement about questions that do matter.
What Makes Us Moral? On the capacities and conditions for being moral
by Bert Musschenga Anton Van HarskampThis book addresses the question of what it means to be moral and which capacities one needs to be moral. It questions whether empathy is a cognitive or an affective capacity, or perhaps both. As most moral beings behave immorally from time to time, the authors ask which factors cause or motivate people to translate their moral beliefs into action? Specially addressed is the question of what is the role of internal factors such as willpower, commitment, character, and what is the role of external, situational and structural factors? The questions are considered from various (disciplinary) perspectives.
What Makes a Church Sacred?: Legal and Ritual Perspectives from Late Antiquity (Transformation of the Classical Heritage #63)
by Mary K. FaragA free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. What is the purpose of a church? Who owns a church? Mary K. Farag persuasively demonstrates that three groups in late antiquity were concerned with these questions: Christian leaders, wealthy laypersons, and lawmakers. Conflicting answers usually coexisted, but from time to time they clashed and caused significant tension. In these disputes, juridical regulations and opinions mattered more than has been traditionally recognized. Considering familiar Christian controversies in novel ways, Farag’s investigation shows that scholarship has misunderstood well-known religious figures by ignoring the legal issues they faced. This seminal text nuances vital aspects of scholarly conversations on sacred space, gift giving, wealth, and poverty in the late antique Mediterranean world, making use not only of Latin and Greek sources but also Coptic and Arabic evidence.
What Makes a Good Nurse
by Derek SellmanIn recent years, the human values at the heart of the nursing profession seem to have become side-lined by an increased focus on managerialist approaches to health care provision. Nursing's values are in danger of becoming marginalised further precisely because that which nursing does best - providing care and helping individuals through the human trauma of illness - is difficult to measure, and therefore plays little, if any, part in official accounts of outcome measures. Derek Sellman sets out the case for re-establishing the primacy of the virtues that underpin the practice of nursing in order to address the question: what makes a good nurse? He provides those in the caring professions with both a rationale and a practical understanding of the importance that particular character traits, including justice, courage, honesty, trustworthiness and open-mindedness, play in the practice of nursing, and explains why and how nurses should strive to cultivate these virtues, as well as the implications of this for practice. This original and thought-provoking book will be essential reading for nurses and nursing students, care workers, care commissioners, and many others who work in the caring professions.
What Market, What Society, What Union?: The Treaty of Amsterdam and the European Thought of Francisco Lucas Pires
by Martinho Lucas Pires Francisco Pereira CoutinhoThis book provides a discussion of some of the most pressing challenges facing EU integration: political and economic governance, constitutional status and citizenship. It does so by discussing the work of one of the most original Portuguese voices in EU studies, Francisco Lucas Pires. In his swan song, here translated into English for the first time, Lucas Pires critically discusses the Treaty of Amsterdam, dissecting the process of its enactment, and its wider consequences for the EU. His profound, original and premonitory observations are commented on in this book by six young, prominent EU law scholars from different research areas.The result is an original and sagacious reflection, aimed both at researchers of EU law and policymakers alike, on the victories and shortcomings of the European project, providing refreshing views on a significant but often-neglected moment in the EU’s history, as well as new avenues of critical thinking for the development of European integration.Martinho Lucas Pires is Ph.D. Candidate at Nova School of Law Lisbon, Assistant lecturer at Católica Law School Lisbon, and Counsel at DLA Piper ABBC Advogados Lisbon, Portugal. Francisco Pereira Coutinho is Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at Nova School of Law Lisbon, Faculty of Law of the NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal.
What Matters Most: The Get Your Sh*t Together Guide to Wills, Money, Insurance, and Life's "What-ifs"
by Chanel ReynoldsPart-memoir, part-guidebook, this is a practical look at getting your affairs in order before the unthinkable (or inevitable) occurs.On July 17, 2009, Chanel Reynolds’s husband, José, was struck by a van, then died one week later. Just hours after the accident, Chanel realized that she was completely unprepared for what came next: What was the password to his phone? Were their wills legally binding? How much insurance did they have? Could she afford the house? And what the hell was probate anyway? Simply put, she didn’t have her shit together.The truth is, most of us don’t.Drawn rom firsthand experience, expert advice, and the unparalleled resources of her celebrated website, Get Your Shit Together, this honest, no-nonsense guide provides step-by-step practical advice to help you with:Checklists: What to do before, during, and after a crisisLegal documents: Create your will, living will, and power of attorneyCovering your ass: Get enough of the right life insuranceGet your money sorted: Emergency funds, savings, and budgetsMake a “what-if” list: Have a watertight emergency planDigital details: Track your online accounts and passwordsPraise for What Matters MostNamed One of the Top 10 Self-Help Books by The Seattle Times“Chanel’s wisdom is a gift. . . . What Matters Most offers you the chance to find, and consider, those critical answers.” —Rebecca Soffer, coauthor of Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief. Beginners Welcome.“A rallying cry for us all to get our sh*t together before it’s too late.” —Caitlin Doughty, New York Times–bestselling author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes“Not only sound counseling but a straightforward plan for when the unthinkable occurs.” —Library Journal (Best Wellness Book)
What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits Of Markets
by Michael J. SandelA renowned political philosopher rethinks the role that markets and money should play in our society Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we put a price on human life to decide how much pollution to allow? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars, outsourcing inmates to for-profit prisons, auctioning admission to elite universities, or selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? In his New York Times  bestseller What Money Can't Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes up one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Isn't there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets? In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society In Justice, an international bestseller, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can't Buy, he provokes a debate that's been missing in our market-driven age: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?
What Obergefell v. Hodges Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Same-Sex Marriage Decision
by Jack M. BalkinRewriting the Supreme Court&’s landmark gay rights decision Jack Balkin and an all-star cast of legal scholars, sitting as a hypothetical Supreme Court, rewrite the famous 2015 opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry. In eleven incisive opinions, the authors offer the best constitutional arguments for and against the right to same-sex marriage, and debate what Obergefell should mean for the future. In addition to serving as Chief Justice of this imaginary court, Balkin provides a critical introduction to the case. He recounts the story of the gay rights litigation that led to Obergefell, and he explains how courts respond to political mobilizations for new rights claims. The social movement for gay rights and marriage equality is a powerful example of how—through legal imagination and political struggle—arguments once dismissed as &“off-the-wall&” can later become established in American constitutional law.
What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear
by Danielle OfriCan refocusing conversations between doctors and their patients lead to better health? Despite modern medicine’s infatuation with high-tech gadgetry, the single most powerful diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which can uncover the lion’s share of illnesses. However, what patients say and what doctors hear are often two vastly different things.Patients, anxious to convey their symptoms, feel an urgency to “make their case” to their doctors. Doctors, under pressure to be efficient, multitask while patients speak and often miss the key elements. Add in stereotypes, unconscious bias, conflicting agendas, and fear of lawsuits and the risk of misdiagnosis and medical errors multiplies dangerously.Though the gulf between what patients say and what doctors hear is often wide, Dr. Danielle Ofri proves that it doesn’t have to be. Through the powerfully resonant human stories that Dr. Ofri’s writing is renowned for, she explores the high-stakes world of doctor-patient communication that we all must navigate. Reporting on the latest research studies and interviewing scholars, doctors, and patients, Dr. Ofri reveals how better communication can lead to better health for all of us.
What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Cat
by Steven D. HalesWhat ethical obligations do people have to cats? Are cats more rational than humans? What can cats teach humans about evolutionary psychology? In this fascinating collection of articles, 18 philosophers try to answer these questions and more as they explore the majesty, mystique, and mystery of the cat. They reveal surprising insights into the feline mind and world and offer delightful anecdotes of cats they have known.
What Philosophy Can Tell You about Your Dog
by Steven D. HalesDo dogs live in the same world as humans? Is it wrong to think dogs have personalities and emotions? What are dogs thinking and what's the nature of canine wisdom? This is a book for thoughtful dog-lovers who want to explore the deeper issues raised by dogs and their relationships with humans. Twenty philosophers and dog-lovers reveal their experiences with dogs and give their insights on dog-related themes of metaphysics and ethics.
What Philosophy Is For
by Michael HampeWhat is the state of philosophy today, and what might it be tomorrow? With What Philosophy Is For, Michael Hampe answers these questions by exploring the relationships among philosophy, education, science, and narrative, developing a Socratic critique of philosophical doctrines. Philosophers generally develop systematic theories that lay out the basic structures of human experience, in order to teach the rest of humanity how to rightly understand our place in the world. This “scientific” approach to philosophy, Hampe argues, is too one-sided. In this magnum opus of an essay, Hampe aims to rescue philosophy from its current narrow claims of doctrine and to remind us what it is really for—to productively disillusion us into clearer thinking. Hampe takes us through twenty-five hundred years of intellectual history, starting with Socrates. That archetype of the philosophical teacher did not develop strict doctrines and rules, but rather criticized and refuted doctrines. With the Socratic method, we see the power of narration at work. Narrative and analytical disillusionment, Hampe argues, are the most helpful long-term enterprises of thought, the ones most worth preserving and developing again.What Philosophy Is For is simultaneously an introduction, a critique, and a call to action. Hampe shows how and why philosophy became what it is today, and, crucially, shows what it could be once more, if it would only turn its back on its pretensions to dogma: a privileged space for reflecting on the human condition.
What Price the Moral High Ground?: How to Succeed without Selling Your Soul
by Robert H. FrankFinancial disasters--and stories of the greedy bankers who precipitated them--seem to underscore the idea that self-interest will always trump concerns for the greater good. Indeed, this idea is supported by the prevailing theories in both economics and evolutionary biology. But is it valid? In What Price the Moral High Ground?, economist and social critic Robert Frank challenges the notion that doing well is accomplished only at the expense of doing good. Frank explores exciting new work in economics, psychology, and biology to argue that honest individuals often succeed, even in highly competitive environments, because their commitment to principle makes them more attractive as trading partners. Drawing on research he has conducted and published over the past decade, Frank challenges the familiar homo economicus stereotype by describing how people create bonds that sustain cooperation in one-shot prisoner's dilemmas. He goes on to describe how people often choose modestly paid positions in the public and nonprofit sectors over comparable, higher-paying jobs in the for-profit sector; how studying economics appears to inhibit cooperation; how social norms often deter opportunistic behavior; how a given charitable organization manages to appeal to donors with seemingly incompatible motives; how concerns about status and fairness affect salaries in organizations; and how socially responsible firms often prosper despite the higher costs associated with their business practices. Frank's arguments have important implications for the conduct of leaders in private as well as public life. Tossing aside the model of the self-interested homo economicus, Frank provides a tool for understanding how to better structure organizations, public policies, and even our own lives.
What Remains: Bringing America’s Missing Home from the Vietnam War
by Sarah E. WagnerNearly 1,600 Americans who took part in the Vietnam War are still missing and presumed dead. Sarah Wagner tells the stories of those who mourn and continue to search for them. Today’s forensic science can identify remains from mere traces, raising expectations for repatriation and forcing a new reckoning with the toll of America’s most fraught war.
What Responsibility? Whose Responsibility?: Intention, Agency, and Emotions of Collective Entities
by Bhaskarjit NeogThis book is an enquiry into the meaning and nature of collective responsibility. It analyses the moral culpability of collective entities implicated in some of the most pressing contemporary ethical issues, including institutional injustice, corporate scams, organized crimes, gang wars, genocide, xenophobia, and other group-based violence. It asks: Who is responsible when a collective is (held) responsible? Is collective responsibility merely a façon de parler, a rhetorical way of talking about individual moral responsibility, or is it more than that? Using some of the latest resources from the philosophy of action, philosophy of mind, and social ontology, the author develops a nuanced non-individualist position with the help of a concept of collective agency. He interprets collective responsibility as the responsibility of a collective without either reducing it to the responsibility of the individual members or making it a case where their moral positions become blurred. An important intervention in moral philosophy, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of moral philosophy, philosophy of action and mind, philosophy of social sciences, and political philosophy. It will also be a theoretical resource for legal theorists, just war theorists, game theorists, business ethicists, and policy makers.
What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: The Nation's Top Legal Experts Rewrite America's Most Controversial Decision, Revised Edition
by Jack M. BalkinA unique introduction to the constitutional arguments for and against the right to abortionIn January 1973, the Supreme Court’s opinion in Roe v. Wade struck down most of the country's abortion laws and held for the first time that the Constitution guarantees women the right to safe and legal abortions. Nearly five decades later, in 2022, the Court’s 5-4 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe and eliminated the constitutional right, stunning the nation. Instead of finally resolving the constitutional issues, Dobbs managed to bring new attention to them while sparking a debate about the Supreme Court’s legitimacy.Originally published in 2005, What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said asked eleven distinguished constitutional scholars to rewrite the opinions in this landmark case in light of thirty years’ experience but making use only of sources available at the time of the original decision. Offering the best arguments for and against the constitutional right to abortion, the contributors have produced a series of powerful essays that get to the heart of this fascinating case. In addition, Jack Balkin gives a detailed historical introduction that chronicles the Roe litigation—and the constitutional and political clashes that followed it—and explains the Dobbs decision and its aftermath.