Questions of public and private morality, values and choices have become important areas of collective discussion. A key feature of this book is that it takes an ethnographic rather than a philosophical or speculative approach to moral debates. This study examines the contemporary explosion of ethical discourse in the public domain and the growing importance of moral rhetoric as an aspect of social relations.
Roma identities have often been presented in literature as collectively constructed and in opposition to those who are not Roma. Contesting Moralities challenges these preconceptions about Roma identification by disentangling the binaries between Roma and non-Roma, state and non-state, public and private. It explores topics resonating in contemporary Romani studies that are in need of further exploration through individual perspectives, including history, activism, kinship, childhood, and gender hierarchies. The book paints a complex picture of inequality and how it is negotiated amid conflicting, ambiguous and contradictory regimes of power and moral demands, including those of state and kin.
Particularism is a justly popular ‘cutting-edge’ topic in contemporary ethics across the world. Many moral philosophers do not, in fact, support particularism (instead defending "generalist" theories that rest on particular abstract moral principles), but nearly all would take it to be a position that continues to offer serious lessons and challenges that cannot be safely ignored. Given the high standard of the contributions, and that this is a subject where lively debate continues to flourish, Challenging Moral Particularism will become required reading for professionals and advanced students working in the area.
Highlighting the sources, processes and outcomes of moral struggles in and around markets, this volume advances our current understanding of markets and their contested moralities.
This work canvasses fundamental problems within the diverse disciplines of legal philosophy, democratic theory, philosophy of adjudication, and public-law theory and suggests a unified approach to unraveling them. It also addresses practical questions of law and government in a way that should appeal to anyone interested in the complex and often troubled relationship among morality, democracy, and the rule of law. --
Highlighting the sources, processes and outcomes of moral struggles in and around markets, this volume advances our current understanding of markets and their contested moralities.
Before the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, private marketeering was regarded not only as criminal, but even immoral by socialist regimes. Ten years after taking on board western market-orientated shock therapy, post-socialist societies are still struggling to come to terms with the clash between these deeply engrained moralities and the daily pressures to sell and consume. This book explores the new market and its resulting contradictions in a rapidly developing Eastern Europe and Russia. Will Western fast-food industries irrevocably alter local culinary practices? What effect has the privatization of land had upon ownership and exchange? What role do new commodities play within the household? Based on original, first-hand ethnography, this book is a long-awaited addition to existing literature on post-socialist societies. It will be essential reading for students of anthropology, sociology, European and cultural studies, as well as professional groups working in Eastern Europe and Russia, including NGOs, development organizations and businesses.
For two millennia Christianity has embraced fairly consistent views of human sexuality. Today, there exist more varied outlooks on the subject. This volume on Christianity in the The Library of Essays on Sexuality and Religion series overviews the contrasting Christian perceptions of sexuality. Part 1 includes a number of previously published articles that are theological in nature and present biblical interpretations of sexuality. Here, several Christian voices are permitted to speak from their varied perspectives, both conservative and liberal. Part 2 features contributions focusing on the Christian tradition of celibacy and asceticism. Part 3 surveys scholarly work emphasising the relationship between sexuality, gender and patriarchy. Part 4 offers academic interpretations of Christian expressions of sexuality through the mediums of worship, ritual and the sacraments. The final part peruses contemporary contestations of conventional Christian views. This is undertaken by presenting articles examining views of gay sexuality, assisted human reproduction and priestly celibacy.
