Normative ethical theories generally purport to be explanatory--to tell us not just what is good, or what conduct is right, but why. Drawing on both historical and contemporary approaches, Mark Schroeder offers a distinctive picture of how such explanations must work, and of the specific commitments that they incur. According to Schroeder, explanatory moral theories can be perfectly general only if they are reductive, offering accounts of what it is for something to be good, right, or what...

In the last five decades, ethical theory has been preoccupied by a turn to reasons. The vocabulary of reasons has become a common currency not only in ethics, but in epistemology, action theory, and many related areas. It is now common, for example, to see central theses such as evidentialism in epistemology and egalitarianism in political philosophy formulated in terms of reasons. And some have even claimed that the vocabulary of reasons is so useful precisely because reasons have analyti...

According to noncognitivists, when we say that stealing is wrong, what we are doing is more like venting our feelings about stealing or encouraging one another not to steal, than like stating facts about morality. These ideas challenge the core not only of much thinking about morality and metaethics, but also of much philosophical thought about language and meaning.Noncognitivism in Ethics is an outstanding introduction to these theories, ranging from their early history through th...

Expressivism - the sophisticated contemporary incarnation of the noncognitivist research program of Ayer, Stevenson, and Hare - is no longer the province of metaethicists alone. Its comprehensive view about the nature of both normative language and normative thought has also recently been applied to many topics elsewhere in philosophy - including logic, probability, mental and linguistic content, knowledge, epistemic modals, belief, the a priori, and even quantifiers. Yet the semantic comm...

The concept of a reason is now central to many areas of contemporary philosophy. Key theses in ethics, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of action, and the philosophy of the emotions, among others, have come to be framed in terms of reasons. And yet, despite their centrality, theorists seem to take inconsistent things for granted about how reasons work, what kinds of things can be reasons, what reasons favor, and more. Somehow reasons have come to be both indispensable and imp...

Japan was the first Asian nation to face the full impact of modernity. Like the rest of Japanese society, Buddhist institutions, individuals, and thought were drawn into the dynamics of confronting the modern age. Japanese Buddhism had to face multiple challenges, but it also contributed to modern Japanese society in numerous ways. Buddhism and Modernity: Sources from Nineteenth-Century Japan makes accessible the voices of Japanese Buddhists during the early phase of high modernit...

For many service users and professionals in the field of social work, shame is an ongoing part of their daily experience.Providing an in-depth examination of the complex phenomena of shame and humiliation, this book sets out key contextual issues and theoretical approaches to comprehend shame and its relevance within social work. It provides a broad understanding of shame, its underlying social and political contexts and its effects on service users and professionals.The bo...

This book is a collection of works related to information contributed by multiple authors dedicated to the memory of Mark Burgin who passed away on February 18, 2023. Mark Burgin had a very wide range of research and philosophical interests which has a reflection in the very broad subject range of the contributions to this book honoring his memory as an outstanding member of the academic community.The book Understanding Information and Its Role as a Tool: In Memory of Mark Burgin h...

What happens when life throws us a curveball? Usually, we deal with it in the moment and go on about our day. But what happens when the world is thrown a curveball — a global pandemic? The world is forced to pause.In this book, you will meet 21 courageous authors who chose to act when thrown the curveball of the pandemic. Like most of us, they were not prepared for the year 2020. But in each captivating story, we see how they met the challenging year head-on in their own unique and...

With laboratory animals, especially rabbits, playing such an important role in biomedical research, the humane care of these animals is an ongoing concern. The Laboratory Rabbit, Second Edition presents basic information and common procedures in detail to provide a quick reference for caretakers, technicians, and researchers in a laboratory setting.Now in full color, the second edition of this book illustrates management practices and technical procedures with nume...

Existentialist philosophy has, at times, been exceptionally popular. This is because of its promise of possibility, both in doctrine and in style: Its doctrine promises that we can break free from the shackles of cognitive or social structures we are thrown into, and we can overcome our marred personal or collective history. Its style promises that philosophy can be exciting, moving, exhilarating, and funny. Analytic Existentialism brings together ten essays in which analytic phil...