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.

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.

• 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

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.

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.

• 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