J. R. Lucas - Böcker

Responsibility is a key concept in our moral, social and political thinking, but is not itself properly understood. In this book J R Lucas elucidates it in terms of answerability - the obligation to answer the question 'Why did you do it?' He develops this account to include negative responsiblity - 'Why did you not do something about it?' - and share responsibility, which together yield the rationale of political responsibility. In disentangling these two strands of argument, he points out potential conflicts between them within our ideal of responsible government. He exposes the flaws in consequentialism generally, and the utilitarian theory of punishment in particular, and argues for the insights of retributive theories but without the vindictiveness. He devotes separate chapters to rewards, money and personal relations, outlines the fundamental principles of business and professional ethics, and finally touches on those issues that go beyond responsibility altogether.

The author, who pioneered this argument in 1961, here places it in the context of traditional discussions of the problem, and answers various criticisms that have been made.

The Principles of Politics

Space, Time and Causality An Essay in Natural Philosophy

Originally published in 1976. This comprehensive study discusses in detail the philosophical, mathematical, physical, logical and theological aspects of our understanding of time and space. The text examines first the many different definitions of time that have been offered, beginning with some of the puzzles arising from our awareness of the passage of time and shows how time can be understood as the concomitant of consciousness. In considering time as the dimension of change, the author obtains a transcendental derivation of the concept of space, and shows why there has to be only one dimension of time and three of space, and why Kant was not altogether misguided in believing the space of our ordinary experience to be Euclidean.The concept of space-time is then discussed, including Lorentz transformations, and in an examination of the applications of tense logic the author discusses the traditional difficulties encountered in arguments for fatalism. In the final sections he discusses eternity and the beginning and end of the universe. The book includes sections on the continuity of space and time, on the directedness of time, on the differences between classical mechanics and the Special and General theories of relativity, on the measurement of time, on the apparent slowing down of moving clocks, and on time and probability.

Originally published in 1976. This comprehensive study discusses in detail the philosophical, mathematical, physical, logical and theological aspects of our understanding of time and space. The text examines first the many different definitions of time that have been offered, beginning with some of the puzzles arising from our awareness of the passage of time and shows how time can be understood as the concomitant of consciousness. In considering time as the dimension of change, the author obtains a transcendental derivation of the concept of space, and shows why there has to be only one dimension of time and three of space, and why Kant was not altogether misguided in believing the space of our ordinary experience to be Euclidean.The concept of space-time is then discussed, including Lorentz transformations, and in an examination of the applications of tense logic the author discusses the traditional difficulties encountered in arguments for fatalism. In the final sections he discusses eternity and the beginning and end of the universe. The book includes sections on the continuity of space and time, on the directedness of time, on the differences between classical mechanics and the Special and General theories of relativity, on the measurement of time, on the apparent slowing down of moving clocks, and on time and probability.

With the close link between the creation of value and business ethics in mind, this book proposes that economic value should become the basic metric for evaluating performance in the creation of value, and for establishing fair and reasonable standards for executive compensation.