Jonathan Glover - Böcker

The moral problems of abortion, infanticide, suicide, euthanasia, capital punshiment, war and othe life-or-death choices.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.BL Distinguished editors and contributorsBL Addresses questions of some urgency for the question of women's quality of lifeBL Inter-disciplinary, ranging over philosophy, economics, political science, anthropology, law and sociologyBL Combines theory with case-studiesBL Accessible to non-specialist readerBL Sequel to The Quality of Life, edited by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, applying the 'capabilities' approach outlined in that volumeBL Topical - challenges 'politically correct' relativist approaches and discusses the validity of charges of 'cultural imperialism' levelled at Western aid and intervention policies.Women, a majority of the world's population, receive only a small proportion of its opportunities and benefits. According to the 1993 UN Human Development Report, there is no country in the world in which women's quality of life is equal to that of men. This examination of women's quality of life thus addresses questions which have a particular urgency. It aims to describe the basic situation of all women and so develops a universal account that can answer the charges of 'Western imperialism' frequently made against such accounts. The contributors confront the issue of cultural relativism, criticizing the relativist apprach which, in its desire to respect different cultural traditions, can result in indifference to injustice. An account of gender justice and women's equality is then proposed in various areas in which quality of life is measured. These issues are related throughout to the specific contexts of India, Bangladesh, China, Mexico, and Nigeria through a series of case studies. Disciplines represented include philosophy, economics, political science, anthropology, law, and sociology.Like its predecessor, The Quality of Life, this volume encourages the reader to think critically about the central fundamental concepts used in development economics and suggests major criticisms of current economic approaches from that fundamental viewpoint.Contributors: Martha Nussbaum, Marty Chen, Susan Wolf, Jonathan Glover, Onora O'Neill, David Crocker, Hilary Putnam, Linda Alcoff, Amartya Sen, Susan Moller Okin, Ruth Anna Putnam, Cass R.Sunstein, Christine M.Korsgaard, Catherine Lutz, Xiaorong Li, Margarita M.Valdes, Nkiru Nzegwu

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.BL Distinguished editors and contributorsBL Addresses questions of some urgency for the question of women's quality of lifeBL Inter-disciplinary, ranging over philosophy, economics, political science, anthropology, law and sociologyBL Combines theory with case-studiesBL Accessible to non-specialist readerBL Sequel to The Quality of Life, edited by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, applying the 'capabilities' approach outlined in that volumeBL Topical - challenges 'politically correct' relativist approaches and discusses the validity of charges of 'cultural imperialism' levelled at Western aid and intervention policies. Women, a majority of the world's population, receive only a small proportion of its opportunities and benefits. According to the 1993 UN Human Development Report, there is no country in the world in which women's quality of life is equal to that of men. This examination of women's quality of life thus addresses questions which have a particular urgency. It aims to describe the basic situation of all women and so develops a universal account that can answer the charges of 'Western imperialism' frequently made against such accounts. The contributors confront the issue of cultural relativism, criticizing the relativist approach which, in its desire to respect different cultural traditions, can result in indifference to injustice. An account of gender justice and women's equality is then proposed in various areas in which quality of life is measured. These issues are related throughout to the specific contexts of India, Bangladesh, China, Mexico, and Nigeria through a series of case studies. Disciplines represented include philosophy, economics, political science, anthropology, law, and sociology. Like its predecessor, The Quality of Life, this volume encourages the reader to think critically about the central fundamental concepts used in development economics and suggests major criticisms of current economic approaches from that fundamental viewpoint.Contributors: Martha Nussbaum, Marty Chen, Susan Wolf, Jonathan Glover, Onora O'Neill, David Crocker, Hilary Putnam, Linda Alcoff, Amartya Sen, Susan Moller Okin, Ruth Anna Putnam, Cass R.Sunstein, Christine M.Korsgaard, Catherine Lutz, Xiaorong Li, Margarita M.Valdes, Nkiru Nzegwu

Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. The renowned moral philosopher and best-selling author Jonathan Glover shows us how we might try to answer this question, and other provoking and disturbing questions to which it leads. Surely parents owe it to their children to give them the best life they can? Increasingly we are able to reduce the number of babies born with disabilities and disorders. But there is a powerful new challenge to conventional thinking about the desirability of doing so: this comes from the voices of those who have these conditions. They call into question the very definition of disability. How do we justify trying to avoid bringing people like them into being? In 2002 a deaf couple used sperm donated by a friend with hereditary deafness to have a deaf baby: they took the view that deafness is not a disability, but a difference. Starting with the issues raised by this case, Jonathan Glover examines the emotive idea of 'eugenics', and the ethics of attempting to enhance people, for non-medical reasons, by means of genetic choices. Should parents be free, not only to have children free from disabilities, but to choose, for instance, the colour of their eyes or hair? This is no longer a distant prospect, but an existing power which we cannot wish away. What impact will such interventions have, both on the individuals concerned and on society as a whole? Should we try to make general improvements to the genetic make-up of human beings? Is there a central core of human nature with which we must not interfere? This beautifully clear book is written for anyone who cares about the rights and wrongs of parents' choices for their children, anyone who is concerned about our human future. Glover handles these uncomfortable questions in a controversial but always humane and sympathetic manner.

We have made huge progress in understanding the biology of mental illnesses, but comparatively little in interpreting them at the psychological level. The eminent philosopher Jonathan Glover believes that there is real hope of progress in the human interpretation of disordered minds.The challenge is that the inner worlds of people with psychiatric disorders can seem strange, like alien landscapes, and this strangeness can deter attempts at understanding. Do people with disorders share enough psychology with other people to make interpretation possible? To explore this question, Glover tackles the hard cases—the inner worlds of hospitalized violent criminals, of people with delusions, and of those diagnosed with autism or schizophrenia. Their first-person accounts offer glimpses of inner worlds behind apparently bizarre psychiatric conditions and allow us to begin to learn the “language” used to express psychiatric disturbance. Art by psychiatric patients, or by such complex figures as van Gogh and William Blake, give insight when interpreted from Glover’s unique perspective. He also draws on dark chapters in psychiatry’s past to show the importance of not medicalizing behavior that merely transgresses social norms. And finally, Glover suggests values, especially those linked with agency and identity, to guide how the boundaries of psychiatry should be drawn.Seamlessly blending philosophy, science, literature, and art, Alien Landscapes? is both a sustained defense of humanistic psychological interpretation and a compelling example of the rich and generous approach to mental life for which it argues.

This book is about history and morality in the twentieth century. It is about the psychology which made possible Hiroshima, the Nazi genocide, the Gulag, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and many other atrocities. In modern technological war, victims are distant and responsibility is fragmented. The scientists making the atomic bomb thought that they were only providing a weapon: how it was used was to be the responsibility of society. The people who dropped the bomb were only obeying orders. The machinery of the political decision-taking was so complex that no one among the politicians was unambiguously responsible. No one thought of themselves as causing the horrors of Hiroshima. Jonathan Glover examines tribalism: how, in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, people who once lived together became trapped into mutual fear and hatred. He investigates how, in Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and in Cambodia, systems of belief made atrocities possible. The analysis of Nazism explores the emotionally powerful combination of tribalism and belief which enabled people to commit acts otherwise unimaginable.Drawing on accounts of participants, victims and observers, Jonathan Glover shows that different atrocities have common patterns which suggest weak points in our psychology. The resulting picture is used as a guide for the ethics we should create if we hope to overcome them. The message is not one of pessimism or despair: only by looking closely at the monsters inside us can we undertake the project of caging and taming them.

Can Israelis and Palestinians end their long conflict? The shocking violence of current events undermines hope, as does the long history of peace deals sabotaged by extremists on both sides. In this compelling and timely book, the eminent moral philosopher Jonathan Glover argues that one vital step towards progress is to better understand the disturbing psychology of the cycle of violence.Glover explores the psychological flaws that entrap both sides: the urge to respond to wounds or humiliation with backlash; political or religious beliefs held with a rigidity that excludes compromise; and people's identity being shaped by the conflict in ways that make it harder to imagine or even desire alternatives. Drawing on the history of comparable conflicts that eased over time, Glover proposes some ways to gradually weaken the grip of this psychology.Completed as casualties mounted in the latest political and humanitarian crisis, Israelis and Palestinians is essential reading for anyone concerned by the ongoing violence in the Middle East.Also available as an audiobook.