Ethics

This essay argues that the public defender should not undertake, or fail to undertake, any action to the legal detriment of a client on the basis of a conflict the attorney perceives between religious and professional responsibility, except for imminent death or serious bodily harm to another. Having accepted the responsibility of representing indigent criminal defendants, the public defender is duty-bound to not compromise that responsibility for competing religious obligations. This argument rests on four premises: (1) the public defender occupies a unique position in our legal system, and options available to private interest lawyers or other clients should not be available to the public defender; (2) any deviation from the governing professional constraints in representing a client that stems from conflicting religious belief and harms the client is both professional unethical and immoral; (3) religion is at best equivocal in addressing the propriety of specific actions taken or...

Westerners have long admired the nature-friendly qualities of Eastern spiritual traditions, such as ahimsa and reincarnation, which tie human beings to the circle of life that reaches across species and which requires a compassionate approach to all living beings. Yet we have often failed to acknowledge this same beauty—teachings of compassion toward allliving beings—in Western traditions.
This article examines Jewish morality with regard to nature, specifically to human
relations with nonhumans. The article focuses on creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2, and on fundamental moral teachings such as compassion and peace. The point of the article is not so much to be critical of Judaism, but rather to reveal how much we might learn from the spiritual and moral teachings of the Jewish tradition about our place in the larger universe. Moreover, as Jewish morality from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) remains important to Christians, this article reveals the ethical standards to which others might hold both Jews and Christians accountable in their relations to animals and the world as a whole

Cite as: “Jewish Ethics and Nonhuman Animals.” Journal of the Institute of Critical Animal Studies 5.2 (2007)

In this article, I focus on a set of collectively stitched handkerchiefs commemorating victims of Mexico’s “war on drugs.” I propose that these embroideries completed in relays can be conceived as the tangible manifestation of work done by collaboration networks articulated by the response of the participants to the call for a critical exercise of citizenship. I posit that the word “citizenship” can be read either as domestic citizenry, that is, as exhorting Mexican nationals to commit to the political struggle against violence and impunity; or as global citizenship, that is, as promoting a responsibility towards and a sense of interconnectedness with a common humanity. In both cases, the call for a critical exercise of citizenship expresses a concern to promote and act in accordance with an ethics of nonviolence, informed by the principles of indigenous communal polities and by the longstanding connection between embroidery and feminine moral virtue imported into New Spain during t...

Pensar os limites do investimento curativo requer perspectivas a partir da nocao etica de limite, de desenvolvimento da biomedicina e das reflexoes da bioetica, assim como da natureza dos cuidados paliativos. As tres perspectivas – a da etica, a da bioetica e a dos cuidados paliativos – configuram territorios compartilhados. No eixo do compromisso de lutar pela vida sem maximizar as intervencoes e humanizar os cuidados, destaque-se o respeito pela decisao do doente capaz e competente e a conviccao de que existem limites aos cuidados, porque tem de fazer sentido para quem os presta e para aquele a quem sao prestados. Os cuidados paliativos podem assegurar uma assistencia o mais completa possivel a pessoa que se encontra na ultima etapa da vida, considerando a morte como um processo normal, que nao podem nem devem retardar ou acelerar. O objetivo e prover a melhor qualidade de vida possivel para o doente em fase terminal e sua familia, ate o momento da chegada da morte, de modo verdad...

According to robust moral realism, there exist objective, non-natural moral facts. Moral facts of this sort do not fit easily into the world as illuminated by natural science. Further, if such facts exist at all, it is hard to see how we could know of their existence by any familiar means. Yet robust realists are not moral skeptics; they believe that we do know (some of) the moral facts. Thus robust moral realism comes with a number of hard-to-defend ontological and epistemological commitments. Recently, Sharon Street has claimed, in light of these commitments, that robust moral realism requires a kind of faith and “has become a strange form of religion.” I believe that Street is right. I argue at some length that robust moral realism does require faith, and is a religion. However, I further argue that it is an excellent religion. I argue that it has three principal advantages: it is avoids wishful thinking, is guaranteed not to contradict the results of natural science, and is profoundly simple in its ontological commitments. Further, robust moral realism may be rationally defensible on eviden- tialist grounds. Consequently, even if the standard arguments for traditional religions are not compelling, there might still be compelling arguments for robust moral realism.

Health care is ubiquitous in the lives of industrialized people. Yet, every medical development, technique, and procedure impact the environment. Green Bioethics synthesizes environmental ethics and biomedical ethics, thus creating an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable health care. Notably, Green Bioethics addresses, not the structure of environmental sustainability in health care institutions, but the sustainability of individual health care offerings.

Green Bioethics parallels traditional biomedical ethics by providing four principles for ethical guidance. Through these four principles, Green Bioethics presents a coherent framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. The principles of Green Bioethics are:
- Distributive Justice (Allocate Basic Medical Resources before Special Interest Access)
- Resource Conservation (Provide Health Care Needs before Health Care Wants)
- Simplicity (Reduce Dependence on Medical Interventions)
- Ethical Economics (Humanistic Health Care Instead of Financial Profit)

The future of our world may very well depend on how effectively we halt ecological destruction and conserve our resources. The principles of Green Bioethics, in tandem with the concrete examples given in this book, will support sustainability in health care.

Author
Buonanno, Thomas  Anthony
Title
School Leadership for a Diverse Society
Year Degree Awarded
2020
Department
Educational Leadership
Degree
Ed.D.
Abstract
Given the increase of language minority students in school districts across Pennsylvania, school leaders are faced with the demand to address the unique needs of students learning English. Previous research suggests that state initiatives to simply assimilate students may not have been successful in meeting their needs. Furthermore, research and theory also suggest that leaders demonstrating cultural proficiency may be more effective in meeting the needs of English learners who are also ethnic minorities. The approach leaders take may be a function of the ethical paradigm that informs their decision-making. In order to understand the extent to which elementary school principals in one school district display cultural proficiency and to investigate the ethical paradigms that inform their decision-making, I conducted interviews with five principals in one large diverse school district in Pennsylvania. Drawing on a framework of Cultural Proficiency, I found in general there to be an over-appreciation of diversity and under-appreciation of cultural proficiency at the conclusion of this study. Additionally, there was an observed tendency for these school principals to view their leadership role as one that functions primarily within the confines of executing district policies at the building-level. Though each participant expressed the importance of advocacy for their students, they did not pursue policy creation or change within a broader political context. Despite the similarities among participants, my analysis suggested variations in the participants’ concepts of their role as school leaders to support English Language Learners and language minority students.
Advisor
McGinley, Christopher W.

Committee Members
Laurence, Janice H.
Haviland, Joseph
Smith, Michael W.

Can a society – a structured group of people - be dysfunctional, normatively evil, can it knowingly cause harm? This essay deconstructs the roots of settler sovereignty as it emerged in Australia and whether the rapid flowering of an invasive culture has led to a society that remains infected by its dispossessory provenance. If so, the question then is: Can we adapt, can we modify the worst of our collective behaviours, or must we become yet another failed evolutionary experiment as we stare across a ruined landscape, of the past, of the future, cowed into catatonic lethargy, barely moved by the constant drip-feeding of three word slogans that are too easily our substitute for considered thought.

This essay starts from a consideration of Deleuze's theory of time. It begins with the empty form of time. But the essay's aim is to understand Deleuze's reversal of Platonism in his 1968 Difference and Repetition. There is no question that the stakes of the reversal of Platonism are ontological. But I argue that what is really at stake is a movement of demoralisation. The essay proceeds in three steps. First, we determine what sufficient reason or grounding is, for Deleuze. Sufficient reason is struck with an irreducible ambiguity. It is this ambiguity in sufficient reason that allows it to be taken advantage of, to be used by representation and good sense for a moral purpose. The second part of the essay will therefore concern 'the moralisation of sufficient reason'. Its focus will be good sense. But then, third, we must understand Deleuze's 'demoralisation of sufficient reason', which necessarily passes through others. Like sufficient reason, others are ambiguous, at once lending themselves to what cancels differences, and opening the way towards difference and intensity. The third step focuses on what Deleuze calls 'the ethics of intensive quantities'. In the Conclusion, I examine Deleuze's famous, almost cliché, definition of ethics as not being unworthy of the event and, through the empty form of time, I connect it to Kant's formalistic ethics.

"""Artykuł odnosi się do etycznych dylematów, które pojawiają się w obrębie turystyki
kulturowej. W tekście krytycznej analizie poddano niewłaściwe zachowania uczestników
turystyki kulturowej (których z tej racji nie należy nazywać turystami kulturowymi), które
wpisują się w nurt turystyki etnicznej, eventowej kultury popularnej, dziedzictwa
kulturowego, religijnej, tanatoturystyki oraz turystyki slumsowej i seksualnej. Przedstawiono
także najczęstsze błędy popełniane przez organizatorów turystyki kulturowej.

Article refers to the ethical dilemmas which appear in cultural tourism. In the text the
inappropriate behaviors of cultural tourism participants (because of such behaviors they can
not be called cultural tourists) have been subjected to the critical analyses. The analyses
concern ethnic tourism, popular culture event tourism, cultural heritage tourism, religious
tourism, thanatotourism, slum tourism and sexual tourism. The authors have also described
the errors made by cultural tourism organizers in the field of cultural tourism ethics."""

One of the most persistent and poignant human experiences is the sensation of longing—a restlessness perhaps best described as the unspoken conviction that something is missing from our lives. In this study, Drew M. Dalton attempts to illuminate this experience by examining the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Levinas on longing, or what Levinas terms “metaphysical desire.”

Metaphysical desire, according to Levinas, does not stem from any determinate lack within us, nor does it aim at a particular object beyond us, much less promise any eventual satisfaction. Rather, it functions in the realm of the infinite where such distinctions as inside and outside or one and the other are indistinguishable, perhaps even eliminated. As Levinas conceives such longing, it becomes a mediator in our relation to the other—both the human other and the divine Other.

Dalton follows the meandering trail of Levinas’s thought along a series of dialogues with some of the philosophers within the history of the Western tradition who have most influenced his corpus. By tracing the genealogy of Levinas’s notion of metaphysical desire—namely in the works of Plato, Heidegger, Fichte, Schelling, and Otto—the nature of this Levinasian theme is elucidated to reveal that it is not simply an idealism, a “hagiography of desire” detached from actual experience and resulting in a disconnect between his phenomenological account and our own lives. Rather, Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire points to a phenomenology of human longing that is both an ethical and religious phenomenon. In the end, human longing is revealed to be one of the most profound ways in which a subject becomes a subject, arising to its “true self,” and hearing the call to responsibility placed upon it by the Other.

Throughout, Dalton explicates the nuance of a number of key Levinasian terms, many of which have been taken from the Western philosophical tradition and reinscribed with a new meaning. Eros, the “Good beyond being,” shame, responsibility, creation, the trace, the il y a, and the holy are discovered to be deeply tied to Levinas’s account of metaphysical desire, resulting in a conclusion regarding longing’s role in the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.

Em Origens do totalitarismo Hannah Arendt emprega o termo mal radical, compreendido como mal absoluto, para se referir à fabricação da superfluidade nos campos de extermínio. Em Eichmann em Jerusalém ela emprega a expressão banalidade do mal para se referir à conduta de indivíduos como Adolf K. Eichmann, que em sua superficialidade teriam testemunhado um descompasso inédito entre a estatura do malfeitor e das transgressões cometidas. Pretendo examinar nesse texto o uso dessas expressões por Arendt, notadamente a partir de suas referências à reflexão kantiana sobre o mal radical.
Palavras-chave: Mal radical; Banalidade do mal; Totalitarismo.

ABSTRACT
In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt employs the term radical evil, understood as absolute evil, to refer to the production of superfluity in concentration camps. In Eichmann in Jerusalem she employs the term banality of evil to refer to the conduct of individuals like Adolf K. Eichmann, who in their superficiality have witnessed an unprecedented
gap between the wrongdoer and the stature of their transgressions. I intend to examine in this text the use of these expressions by Arendt, particularly starting from his references to Kant’s reflection on radical evil.
Keywords: Radical evil; Banality of evil; Totalitarianism

Etika péče je nový a dynamicky se rozvíjející směr morální filosofie. Zatímco tradiční etické systémy zaměřují svou pozornost především na činy a vlastnosti jednotlivců, etika péče vyzdvihuje morální význam vzájemných vztahů osob a skupin. Tato kniha představuje etiku péče jako svébytnou normativní teorii. Virginia Held, jedna z hlavních představitelek tohoto etického směru, v ní objasňuje charakteristické znaky péče a vysvětluje, v čem se etika péče liší od tradičních etických koncepcí, jako jsou kantovská etika, utilitarismus a etika ctností. Held péči vymezuje jako základní morální hodnotu a praxi a uvádí důvody, proč a za jakých okolností by péče měla mít přednost před morálními požadavky spravedlnosti a nestrannosti. Hodnoty péče, důvěry a solidarity zároveň pokládá za vhodný doplněk spravedlnosti či úcty k právům jednotlivce. Kniha se dále věnuje problematice využití etiky péče při řešení sociálních, politických a globálních otázek současnosti – ať už jde o otázky omezení trhu, koncepce školství a zdravotnictví, reformy sociálního státu či globální ekonomické a mocenské nerovnováhy, zde všude má perspektiva péče své přednosti.

George P. Nicholas, Amy Roberts, David M. Schaepe, Joe Watkins, Lyn Leader-Elliot and Susan Rowley Department of Anthropology, Simon Fraser University; Department of Archaeology, Flinders University; Stó:lō Research and Resource Management Centre; Native American Studies Program, University of Oklahoma; Department of Archaeology, Flinders University; Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia nicholas@sfu.ca; amy.roberts@flinders.edu.au; dave.schaepe@stolonation.bc.ca; jwatkins@ou.edu; lyn.leader-elliott@flinders.edu.au; srowley@interchange.ubc.ca

"Baruchello’s Philosophy of Cruelty, the second collection of his essays, turns a difficult and emotionally charged topic into a surprisingly informative and enlightening read. Covering the history of Western philosophy’s treatment of cruelty as a topic, yet relating every point to present-day occasions of violence and injustice, this book is a touchstone for any discussion of cruelty as a philosophical theme. It pulls no punches, yet it leaves you standing taller." (Dr. B. Myers)

(cf. http://www.brendanmyers.net/nwpbooks/baruchello2.html - incl. table of contents; the book can be ordered from Amazon or the publisher)

Please note that all author's royalties are devolved to charity.

In 1809, after killing two men aboard the schooner Three Sisters, Edward Jordan was tried and executed for piracy by the Admiralty Court in Halifax.  After execution, his body was gibbeted, or hanged in chains, in Point Pleasant Park.  It remained there for over three decades, slowly deteriorating until only the skull remained.  In 1844 the skull was collected from Point Pleasant Park and ultimately it was given to the Nova Scotia Museum (NSM).  Last year (2007) it was on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic (MMA) as a part of their Pirates: Myth vs. Reality exhibit.

Since the last quarter of the 20th century, “morality” as a theoretical enterprise revolving around the notions of “law,” “obligation” and “universality” has been severely criticized in the Anglo-Saxon world, especially by the proponents of virtue ethics. However, with the exception of some remarkable figures -such as Alasdair MacIntyre- critics stayed reluctant to focus on the intricate relationship between the modern paradigm of morality and the cultural and political context in which it functions. In this paper, I will argue that Michel Foucault’s work provides us highly valuable conceptual tools through which “code-based morality” can be analyzed primarily as a central “dispositif” that regulates the modalities in which the self relates to the world, to others and to herself. To this end, I will mainly focus on the historical narrative that Foucault develops in his later lectures and show the extent to which certain key aspects of this genealogy may contribute to a criticism of the modern enterprise of morality. A prominent question will be whether the relatively neglected dichotomy between “philosophy” and “spirituality” that Foucault offers in his Hermeneutics of the Subject can be given a key place in this critical project. 

Keywords: ethics, morality, philosophy, spirituality, self, ascesis, Hermeneutics of the Subject

Resumo:
O artigo examina o assim chamado "problema do sentido do sofrimento", formulado no FP 1888, 14 [89] e que trata do antagonismo entre o "sentido cristão" e o "sentido trágico". A caracterização do problema será feita mediante a explicitação de três aspectos formais que atuam na constituição geral de suas teses: o contexto temático religioso, a linguagem da fisiologia e o uso de uma noção agonística de antagonismo. Para cada um será destinada uma seção que visará mostrar sua função na estratégia argumentativa nietzschiana. Num quarto momento, a convergência dos três elementos mostrará que a linguagem da fisiologia fornece a Nietzsche não somente um léxico, mas um procedimento investigativo heurístico, o qual, aplicado às valorações religiosas da existência, revela sua gênese em justificações antagônicas do sofrimento. Identificando o tema da justificação como o cerne que propriamente caracteriza o problema do sentido do sofrimento, a sua análise distinguirá dois significados pelos quais se pode justificar o sofrimento: um significado ideal de justificação, ligado a um tipo de sofredor, cuja debilidade fisiológica necessita da ficção de um além-mundo para fins de consolo e narcotização; e um significado trágico, reservado para os tipos de superabundância de forças, cuja afirmação jubilosa da existência justifica o sofrimento no próprio curso do vir-a-ser, na criação e renovação contínuas da vida. Concluir-se-á com considerações acerca da possibilidade de trabalhar o problema do sentido do sofrimento como hipótese interpretativa para uma crítica da modernidade.


Abstract:
The article examines the so-called "problem of the meaning of suffering", formulated in PF 1888, 14 [89] and that deals with the antagonism between the "christian meaning" and the "tragic meaning". The characterization of the problem will be made through the explanation of three formal aspects that act in the general constitution of its theses: the thematic religious context, the language of physiology and the use of an agonistic notion of antagonism. For each one will be destined a section that will aim to show its function in Nietzsche's argumentative strategy. In a fourth moment, the convergence of the three elements will show that the language of physiology gives Nietzsche not only a lexicon, but a heuristic investigative procedure, which, applied to the religious valuations of existence, reveals its genesis in antagonistic justifications of suffering. By identifying the theme of justification as the core that properly characterizes the problem of the meaning of suffering, his analysis will distinguish two meanings by which suffering can be justified: an ideal meaning of justification, linked to a type of sufferer, whose physiological weakness requires the fiction of an afterworld for consolation and narcotization purposes; and a tragic meaning reserved for the kinds of superabundance of forces whose joyful affirmation of existence justifies suffering

The aim of this paper is to put forward an ethical framework for the conceptualization and development of ethics audits, here understood as a catalyst for company dialogue and in general, for management of ethics in the company. Ethics auditing is understood as the opportunity and agreement to devise a system to inform on ethical corporate behavior. This system essentially aims to increase the transparency and credibility of the company's commitment to ethics. At the same time, the process of elaborating this system allows us to introduce the moral dimension into company actions and decisions, thereby completing a key dimension of the production, maintenance and development of trust capital. To this end, the following four steps are taken. First, we analyze the relation between ethics auditing and trust as a basic moral resource in the dialogue between the company and its various stakeholders. Second, we examine the social balance sheet as a precursor to ethics auditing and focus on what prevents it from going further. Third, we attempt to reconstruct the basic moral assumptions underlying the company's social responsibility from the discourse ethics approach. Finally, we present a methodological framework from which to carry out our proposal, which embraces two basic theoretical perspectives: stakeholder theory and the values derived from discourse ethics as a normative framework.

As the majority perpetrators of sexual violence, it is plausible to see men as responsible for war rape not only as individuals, but also as collective bystanders, facilitators and beneficiaries. Following recent criticisms of individual legal and moral responsibility for rape as a war crime in international law, this article examines how we might think of war rape as a collective action in moral and sociological terms. First, it assesses existing moral arguments for the responsibility of men in groups for rape, primarily with reference to the work of Claudia Card, Larry May and Robert Strikwerda. Critiquing elements of these arguments, it explores the difficulties in talking about ‘men’ as a coherent group and in discussing ‘collectives’ themselves. Second, the article draws out the connection between accounts of moral responsibility and accounts of causal responsibility. Drawing on critiques of collective responsibility and the long-standing agency/structure problem, it argues that causal accounts focusing on structure pose a serious challenge to ideas of both individual and collective moral responsibility. The complexities of the relationship between moral and causal claims are illustrated through a discussion of Susan Brownmiller and Catharine MacKinnon’s influential perspectives on rape. The seeming paradox of responsibility is emphasised as a problem to be addressed by gender and feminist perspectives that seek to pursue both ethical and sociological inquiry into the workings of masculinity and the political means for undoing gendered wrongs.

Nine characters are cast into a set of circumstances that cannot be explained but with which those individuals must engage. The fate of humanity rides on what they do.

Their task is to come to grips with the issue of self-governance. With no resources on which to draw except their own ideas, intelligence, moral integrity, and understanding, they must try to work out the essential principles of sovereignty.

The challenge is time-limited, but they do not how much time is left before the final buzzer is sounded. In addition, there is a war, of some kind, that is raging all around them, and the explosions are coming closer and closer to their location.

The discussions which ensue are far-reaching. They range from: the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, to: issues of ratification, the Preamble to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, constitutionality, the rule of law, judicial interpretation, sovereignty, the nature of power, education, cults, the scientific problem of origins, militarism, and more.

Finally, a number of the characters are suspected of terrorism and treason. As a result, they must face an investigation into their activities. The truth might not be enough to save those individuals, but an unexpected decision is rendered leading to ...

Claude Eatherly, pilota e metereologo,
era un ragazzo texano di
27 anni quando ordinò lo sgancio
della prima bomba atomica della
storia, Little Boy, che colpì Hiroshima
il 6 agosto 1945.
Nonostante la giovane età, non
era certo un dilettante: per quella
missione vennero scelti i migliori
piloti della US Army, e Eatherly
aveva già dato prova del suo valore
militare, abbattendo, nel corso
della sua fulminante carriera,
più di trenta aerei nemici. Dopo
lo sgancio della bomba, tuttavia,
lasciò l’esercito e rifi utò qualsiasi
riconoscimento al valore da parte
degli Stati Uniti. Compì anche
maldestre rapine e altri piccoli
crimini, con la speranza di trovare
sollievo nel biasimo collettivo. Ma
ciò non bastò a placare i suoi dilanianti
sensi di colpa e Eatherly
venne internato in un ospedale
psichiatrico. Fu in questo momento,
quattordici anni dopo Hiroshima,
che iniziò un carteggio con
Günther Anders, il fi losofo tedesco
autore del capolavoro L’uomo
è antiquato. Il risultato è questo
libro: un commovente scambio
epistolare tra Anders e un’anima
persa, in cerca di un’espiazione
tanto impossibile quanto necessaria.
Dopo anni di assenza dalle
librerie, torna disponibile una delle
testimonianze più toccanti sul
disastro che cambiò per sempre
la coscienza collettiva.

The basic philosophical position that the merit of actions must be determined by reference to their consequences may be taken as having either of two incompatible aims. It may be interpreted as a manifesto for moral reform, advocating a better and more enlightened method for settling moral issues to replace less satisfactory ways of moral thinking; or it may be interpreted as an analytic doctrine whose aim is to make explicit those canons of sound moral thinking which are always implicitly followed in any sound moral reflection. Nonconsequentialist theories of morality, showing how they differ from consequentialist theories, they are based on something then the consequences of a person’s action. In the history of ethics, two major viewpoints emerge: the consequentialist and the nonconsequentialist. Nonconsequentialist theories of morality claim that consequences should not enter into our moral judgments. Actions are to be judged right or good in accordance with other criteria.

In her influential and challenging paper “Skepticism about Practical Reason” Christine Korsgaard sets out to refute an important strand of Humean scepticism as it concerns a Kantian understanding of practical reason.1 Korsgaard distinguishes two components of scepticism about practical reason. The first, which she refers to as content scepticism, argues that reason cannot of itself provide any “substantive guidance to choice and action” (SPR, 311). In its classical formulation, as stated by Hume, it is argued that reason cannot determine our ends. Our ends are determined by our desires and reason is limited to the role of identifying the relevant means to these ends. The second component, which Korsgaard calls motivational scepticism, suggests doubt about the scope of reason as a motive. The claim here, as Korsgaard interprets Hume’s view on this matter, is that “all reasoning that has motivational influence must start from a passion, that being the only possible source of motivation” (SPR, 314).2 Korsgaard’s fundamental objective in “Skepticism about Practical Reason” is to show that motivational scepticism must always be based on content scepticism. In other words, according to Korsgaard, motivational scepticism has no independent force. In this paper I argue that Korsgaard’s attempt to discredit motivational scepticism is unsuccessful.


Reprinted in P. Russell, THE LIMITS OF FREE WILL: SELECTED ESSAYS (Oxford: 2017): 121-133.

Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good is a major study of Kierkegaard's relation to Kant that gives a comprehensive account of radical evil and the highest good, two controversial doctrines with important consequences for ethics and religion. Fremstedal offers an original account of Kierkegaard and his role in the history of philosophy that reconstructs several of his central ideas by relating them to Kant and partially also to contemporary debates. By offering a comparative presentation, the book shows how Kant and Kierkegaard offer different solutions to the problem of evil and its complex relation to religious faith and happiness. Fremstedal sheds new light on Kierkegaard's argument against secular thinking, and shows that there are more Kantian elements in Kierkegaard than has been acknowledged. Kierkegaard's use of Kantian ideas is instructive, since it points to problems with Kant's philosophy of religion and indicates how Kantian philosophy can be used to defend religious faith and hope.