Sex, Discrimination, and Violence

Surprising and Unpopular Results in Applied Ethics

Häftad, Engelska, 2009

749 kr

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Sex, Discrimination, and Violence is about how the systematic application of some basic principles of applied ethics yields some surprising and very unpopular results. In particular, Stephen Kershnar investigates three areas: sex, discrimination, and violence. In his discussion of sex, he concludes that adult-child sex is not always wrong and that it is not clear that watching rape pornography is bad for the viewer. When discussing discrimination, Kershnar argues for the following startling conclusions: persons of different races on average differ in their value, professional schools may and probably should discriminate against women, and equal opportunity is not worth pursuing. In his discussion of violence, he contends that in some cases governments are morally permitted to use torture in order to interrogate suspected terrorists and may assassinate foreign leaders. These controversial conclusions will no doubt spur animated and thoughtful discussion amongst readers.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2009-09-08
Mått154 x 232 x 13 mm
Vikt279 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor180
FörlagUniversity Press of America
ISBN9780761847991

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Stephen Kershnar is a professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Fredonia and also an attorney. His research focuses on applied ethics and political philosophy. He has written on such diverse topics as affirmative action, abortion, punishment, pornography, God, interrogational torture, the most valuable player in professional sports, hell, discrimination against women, and Batman.

Chapter 1 PrefaceChapter 2 IntroductionPart 3 Part One: SexChapter 4 1. The Moral Status of Harmless Adult-Child SexChapter 5 2. Is Violation Pornography Bad for Your Soul?Part 6 Part Two: DiscriminationChapter 7 3. Intrinsic Moral Value and Racial DifferencesChapter 8 4. For Discrimination Against WomenChapter 9 5. Why Equal Opportunity is not a Valuable GoalChapter 10 6. Immigrants and WelfarePart 11 Part Three: ViolenceChapter 12 7. For Interrogational TortureChapter 13 8. The Moral Argument for a Policy of AssassinationChapter 14 Index

Fascinating philosophy often seeks to generate strong conclusions from weak premises. Stephen Kershnar's Sex, Discrimination, and Violence is in this vein. Beginning with a relatively uncontroversial moral core of self-ownership rights and a widely accepted objective account of the human good, Kershnar claims that certain counterintuitive conclusions about permissible behavior cannot be avoided. Kershnar's book requires us to consider whether our rejection of practices such as enjoying rape-pornography and torturing wrongdoers is based merely on squeamishness, or can be given a principled foundation. Few will want to accept Kershnar's conclusions, but many will enjoy learning as they try to figure out where he has gone wrong.