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Jeff McMahan (philosopher)
Jefferson Allen McMahan (; born August 30, 1954) is an American moral philosopher. He has been White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford since 2014. Education and career McMahan completed a B.A. degree in English literature at the University of the South (Sewanee). He completed a second B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, then did graduate work in philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He then earned his M.A. at the University of Oxford. He was offered a research studentship at St. John's College, Cambridge from 1979 to 1983. He studied first under Jonathan Glover and Derek Parfit at the University of Oxford and was later supervised by Bernard Williams at the University of Cambridge, where he was a research fellow of St. John's College from 1983 to 1986. He received his doctorate in 1986 from Cambridge. His thesis title was ''Problems of Population Theory''. He taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wild Animal Suffering
Wild animal suffering is the suffering experienced by nonhuman animals living outside of direct human control, due to harms such as disease, injury, parasitism, starvation and malnutrition, dehydration, weather conditions, natural disasters, and killings by other animals, as well as psychological stress. Some estimates indicate that these individual animals make up the vast majority of animals in existence. An extensive amount of natural suffering has been described as an unavoidable consequence of Darwinian evolution and the pervasiveness of reproductive strategies which favor producing large numbers of offspring, with a low amount of parental care and of which only a small number survive to adulthood, the rest dying in painful ways, has led some to argue that suffering dominates happiness in nature. The topic has historically been discussed in the context of the philosophy of religion as an instance of the problem of evil. More recently, starting in the 19th century, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ''philosophy'' itself originated from the Ancient Greek (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" grc, φιλεῖν , "to love" and σοφία '' sophía'', "wisdom"). History Ancient The scope of ancient Western philosophy included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics). Pre-Socratics The pre-Socratic philosophers were interested in cosmology; the nature and origin of the universe, while rejecting mythical answers to such questions. They were specifically interested in the (the cause or first principle) of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White's Professor Of Moral Philosophy
The White's Chair of Moral Philosophy was endowed in 1621 by Thomas White (c. 1550–1624), Canon of Christ Church as the oldest professorial post in philosophy at the University of Oxford. In 2021, the chair was renamed the Sekyra and White’s Professorship of Moral Philosophy following a gift from the Sekyra Foundation. Under the original agreement, the professorship was to receive a stipend of £100 per annum, along with other payments and emoluments. The chair was not to be held for more than five years, or at the most ten years. In 1673, a practice began of electing one of the proctors, usually the senior, to the office; in course of time the lectures were entirely dropped; and at length the Professorship was so far forgotten, that it was never mentioned in the Oxford Calendar before the year 1831, the practice having continued, with one exception, until February 1829. The professorship was established on a new footing by a statute approved by the Queen in Council in 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Effective Altruism
Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, called , often choose careers based on the amount of good that the career achieves while donating to charities based on maximising impact. The movement developed during the 2000s, and the name was coined in 2011. Prominent philosophers influential to the movement include Peter Singer, Toby Ord, and William MacAskill. Several books and many articles about the movement have since been published, and the Effective Altruism Global conference has been held since 2013. As of 2022, several billion dollars have been committed to effective altruist causes. Popular cause priorities within effective altruism include global health and development, social inequality, animal welfare, and risks to the survival of humanity over the long-term future. Ef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert McKim (philosopher)
Robert McKim (born December 29, 1952) is an Irish philosopher of religion. He was born in Collooney , Co. Sligo and attended Wesley College for his Secondary Education in Dublin. As a student he worked in London during summer vacations. He has degrees in philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and from the University of Calgary, and a Ph.D. in religious studies and philosophy from Yale University. He is Professor of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit .... McKim has written extensively on the implications of religious diversity. In ''Religious Ambiguity and Religious Diversity'' (Oxford, 2001) McKim appeals to the twin realities of religious ambiguity and religious diversity in making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Of War
The law of war is the component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war ('' jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of warring parties (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territories, occupation, and other critical terms of law. Among other issues, modern laws of war address the declarations of war, acceptance of surrender and the treatment of prisoners of war; military necessity, along with ''distinction'' and ''proportionality''; and the prohibition of certain weapons that may cause unnecessary suffering. The ''law of war'' is considered distinct from other bodies of law—such as the domestic law of a particular belligerent to a conflict—which may provide additional legal limits to the conduct or justification of war. Early sources and history The first traces of a law of war come from the Babylonians. It is the Code of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, which, 2000 B.C., explains its laws imposing a co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Walzer
Michael Laban Walzer (born 1935) is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of ''Dissent'', an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics—many in political ethics—including just and unjust wars, nationalism, ethnicity, Zionism, economic justice, social criticism, radicalism, tolerance, and political obligation. He is also a contributing editor to ''The New Republic''. To date, he has written 27 books and published over 300 articles, essays, and book reviews in ''Dissent'', ''The New Republic'', ''The New York Review of Books'', ''The New Yorker'', ''The New York Times'', ''Harpers'', and many philosophical and political science journals. Early life and education Born to a Jewish family on March 3, 1935, Walzer gradua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Duty
Negative and positive rights are rights that oblige either inaction (''negative rights'') or action (''positive rights''). These obligations may be of either a legal or moral character. The notion of positive and negative rights may also be applied to liberty rights. To take an example involving two parties in a court of law: Adrian has a ''negative right to x'' against Clay, if and only if Clay is ''prohibited'' to act upon Adrian in some way regarding ''x''. In contrast, Adrian has a ''positive right to x'' against Clay, if and only if Clay is obliged to act upon Adrian in some way regarding ''x''. A case in point, if Adrian has a ''negative right to life'' against Clay, then Clay is required to refrain from killing Adrian; while if Adrian has a ''positive right to life'' against Clay, then Clay is required to act as necessary to preserve the life of Adrian. ''Negative rights'' may include civil and political rights such as freedom of speech, life, private property, freedo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Just War Theory
The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. The criteria are split into two groups: ("right to go to war") and ("right conduct in war"). The first group of criteria concerns the morality of going to war, and the second group of criteria concerns the moral conduct within war. There have been calls for the inclusion of a third category of just war theory ('' jus post bellum'') dealing with the morality of post-war settlement and reconstruction. The just war theory postulates the belief that war, while it is terrible but less so with the right conduct, is not always the worst option. Important responsibilities, undesirable outcomes, or preventable atrocities may justify war. Op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bioethics
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society (what decisions are "good" or "bad" and why) and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine ( "the ethics of the ordinary"), ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health. Etymology The term ''Bioethics'' (Greek , life; , behavior) was coined in 1927 by Fritz Jahr in an article about a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Normative Ethics
Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the questions that arise regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense. Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics in that the former examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, whereas the latter studies the meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts. Likewise, normative ethics is distinct from applied ethics in that the former is more concerned with 'who ought one be' rather than the ethics of a specific issue (e.g. if, or when, abortion is acceptable). Normative ethics is also distinct from descriptive ethics, as the latter is an empirical investigation of people's moral beliefs. In this context normative ethics is sometimes called ''prescriptive'', as opposed to ''descriptive'' ethics. However, on certain versions of the meta-ethical view of moral realism, moral facts are both descriptive and prescriptive at the same tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Academy Of Arts & Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other Founding Fathers of the United States. It is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Membership in the academy is achieved through a thorough petition, review, and election process. The academy's quarterly journal, '' Dædalus'', is published by MIT Press on behalf of the academy. The academy also conducts multidisciplinary public policy research. History The Academy was established by the Massachusetts legislature on May 4, 1780, charted in order "to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people." The sixty-two incorporating fellows represented varying interests and high standing in the political, professional, and commercial secto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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