The Moral Significance of Class, first published in 2005, analyses the moral aspects of people's experience of class inequalities. Class affects not only our material wealth but our access to things, relationships, and practices which we have reason to value, including the esteem or respect of others and hence our sense of self-worth. It shapes the kind of people we become and our chances of living a fulfilling life. Yet contemporary culture is increasingly 'in denial' about class, finding it embarrassing to acknowledge, even though it can often be blatantly obvious. By drawing upon concepts from moral philosophy and social theory and applying them to empirical studies of class, this fascinating and accessible study shows how people are valued in a context in which their life-chances and achievements are objectively affected by the lottery of birth class, and by forces which have little to do with their moral qualities or other merits.

https://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/14/14718/14718604_vorw_1.pdf

The Moral Significance of Class

Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law

Preface: a renaissance of virtue 1. Joining the hunt 2. Character and consistency 3. Moral character, moral behavior 4. The fragmentation of character 5. Judging character 6. From psychology to ethics 7. Situation and responsibility 8. Is there anything to be ashamed of?

/pdf/lack-of-character-personality-and-moral-behavior-4hsngncte4.pdf

Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior

Neutralization theory, though a popular framework for understanding deviant behavior, remains badly underdeveloped. Few attempts have been made to connect it to narrative and sociocognitive research in psychology and related fields. From this wider perspective, one reason neutralization theory has received only mixed empirical support is that it has been understood as a theory of criminal etiology. This makes little sense (how can one neutralize something before they have done it?) and makes the theory difficult to test. Neutralization should instead be seen as playing a role in persistence in or desistance from criminal behavior. The theory's central premises need to be substantially complicated. The notions that all excuses or justifications are "bad" and that reform involves "accepting complete responsibility" for one's actions are not tenable.

What Have We Learned from Five Decades of Neutralization Research

Preface and acknowledgements 1. Introduction: a relation to the world of concern 2. Values within reason 3. Reason beyond rationality: values and practical reason 4. Beings for whom things matter 5. Understanding the ethical dimension of life 6. Dignity 7. Critical social science and its rationales 8. Implications for social science Appendix: comments on philosophical theories of ethics Bibliography Index.

Norman Austin

Papers

The Greek Cosmologists, Vol. I: The Formation of the Atomic Theory and Its Earliest Critics

Homer and the Sunrise in Derek Walcott's Omeros

Homer who?

Hellenismos