Social Thought and Rival Claims to the Moral Ideal of Dignity
Social Thought and Rival Claims to the Moral Ideal of Dignity

Author: Philip Hodgkiss

Publisher: Anthem Press

Published: 2018-04-16

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 1783087854

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The relation between changes in society over historical time and the concomitant transformation of a concept that depicts something of intrinsic value in that society is complex and contingent. Social Thought and Rival Claims to the Moral Ideal of Dignity attempts to see if we can get any closer to a rounded, three-dimensional view of dignity by drawing on the historical record, on philosophy and social thought more widely and, finally, on contributions that present dignity in a rather more public and political light. In thus tracing the fortunes of human dignity we find that it has not always been viewed as a straightforwardly laudable principle. Social Thought and Rival Claims to the Moral Ideal of Dignity examines the reasons behind what turns out to be, really quite pronounced, the ambiguous status of the idea and ideal of dignity.

The Science of Dignity
The Science of Dignity

Author: Steven Hitlin

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-09

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0197743862

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This book provides original evidence arguing for dignity as an indicator of public health, by offering a scientific framework for measuring dignity and its social determinants. Hitlin and Andersson show that dignity can be efficiently measured by using simple survey items that ask individuals whether there is "dignity" in their life or in how they are treated by others. National survey data show that unhappiness, sadness, anger, and lower general health are far more common for those reporting undignified lives. These differences in reported dignity come from inequalities in social and economic resources and from experiences of disrespect, threat, or life stress. Social groups with less power generally report lower levels of dignity linked to these multifaceted resource and stress inequalities, which are examined throughout the book. Hitlin and Andersson show that dignity possesses universal value for health and well-being in America, providing a scientific basis for collective consensus and social inspiration.

A Matter of Choice
A Matter of Choice

Author: Philip Hodgkiss

Publisher: James Clarke & Company

Published: 2021-10-28

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0227907434

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A Matter of Choice represents a substantive discussion of the concept of choice in human affairs, taken against the backdrop of ethics and religion. Drawing on a range of contributions, Hodgkiss demonstrates in this study that, though often not the primary issue under consideration, a concern with choice has featured continually in human thought from the Hellenistic world of the Stoics to the post-Kantian environment of modern philosophy. Moreover, he argues that the social and historical dimension of choice has been consistently underplayed, and that the role of choice in modern economic and political developments is underestimated at our peril. Through a critical account of the literature, Hodgkiss adeptly diagnoses the insufficiency of the current conception of the choice-making sovereign individual in the contemporary liberal-democratic capitalist context and outlines the implications of this philosophy for the choice-maker.

The Dignity of Labour
The Dignity of Labour

Author: Jon Cruddas

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2021-04-08

Total Pages: 143

ISBN-13: 1509540806

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Does work give our lives purpose, meaning and status? Or is it a tedious necessity that will soon be abolished by automation, leaving humans free to enjoy a life of leisure and basic income? In this erudite and highly readable book, Jon Cruddas MP argues that it is imperative that the Left rejects the siren call of technological determinism and roots it politics firmly in the workplace. Drawing from his experience of his own Dagenham and Rainham constituency, he examines the history of Marxist and social democratic thinking about work in order to critique the fatalism of both Blairism and radical left techno-utopianism, which, he contends, have more in common than either would like to admit. He argues that, especially in the context of COVID-19, socialists must embrace an ethical socialist politics based on the dignity and agency of the labour interest. This timely book is a brilliant intervention in the highly contentious debate on the future of work, as well as an ambitious account of how the left must rediscover its animating purpose or risk irrelevance.

Justice for Hedgehogs
Justice for Hedgehogs

Author: Ronald Dworkin

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-05-03

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 0674071964

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The fox knows many things, the Greeks said, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. In his most comprehensive work, Ronald Dworkin argues that value in all its forms is one big thing: that what truth is, life means, morality requires, and justice demands are different aspects of the same large question. He develops original theories on a great variety of issues very rarely considered in the same book: moral skepticism, literary, artistic, and historical interpretation, free will, ancient moral theory, being good and living well, liberty, equality, and law among many other topics. What we think about any one of these must stand up, eventually, to any argument we find compelling about the rest. Skepticism in all its forms—philosophical, cynical, or post-modern—threatens that unity. The Galilean revolution once made the theological world of value safe for science. But the new republic gradually became a new empire: the modern philosophers inflated the methods of physics into a totalitarian theory of everything. They invaded and occupied all the honorifics—reality, truth, fact, ground, meaning, knowledge, and being—and dictated the terms on which other bodies of thought might aspire to them, and skepticism has been the inevitable result. We need a new revolution. We must make the world of science safe for value.

Catholicism, Liberalism, and Communitarianism
Catholicism, Liberalism, and Communitarianism

Author: Kenneth L. Grasso

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 9780847679959

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"This book makes a very ambitious proposal. The proposal is that Catholic social thought can contribute significantly to revivifying the American experiment in liberal democracy. That there is a need, and urgent need, for such a revival is today widely recognized by thinkers across the political and philosophical spectrum. Some of the essays here are polemical and others apologetic, but the book taken all in all is a proposal. As such, it must make its case sometimes in conversation with and sometimes against other proposals that are advanced in the public square of democratic discourse." [Foreword].

Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy
Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy

Author: Michael L. Coulter

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2012-04-05

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 0810882752

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The two original volumes of the Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy were published in 2007. Those two volumes included 848 entries from nearly 300 contributors and included a wide range of entries in three general categories: entries exploring Catholic social thought at a theoretical level, entries reflecting the learning of various social science and humanistic disciplines as this learning relates to Catholic social thought, and entries examining specific social policy questions. This third, supplemental volume continues the approach of the original two. First, the volume includes entries that explore Catholic social thought at its broadest, most theoretical level; for example, an entry on Pope Benedict’s important social encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Second, the volume includes entries that discuss recent social science research that bears on issues important to Catholic social thought; for example, an entry on the social costs of pornography draws on recent research on the topic. Third, the volume includes entries discussing specific issues of social policy that have become increasingly important in recent years; for example, an entry on embryo adoption and/or rescue. This third volume contains 202 entirely new entries from over 100 contributors. The contributors include distinguished scholars such as Father Robert John Araujo, S.J. (Loyola University of Chicago), Father Kevin L. Flannery, S.J. (Gregorian University), Robert P. George (Princeton University), William E. May (John Paul Institute and the Culture of Life Foundation), D. Q. McInerny (Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary), and Michael Novak (Ave Maria University). The work will appeal to anyone who is looking for a clear and accurate introduction to Catholic social thought.

Economic Dignity
Economic Dignity

Author: Gene Sperling

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1984879898

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“Timely and important . . . It should be our North Star for the recovery and beyond.” —Hillary Clinton “Sperling makes a forceful case that only by speaking to matters of the spirit can liberals root their belief in economic justice in people’s deepest aspirations—in their sense of purpose and self-worth.” —The New York Times When Gene Sperling was in charge of coordinating economic policy in the Obama White House, he found himself surprised when serious people in Washington told him that the Obama focus on health care was a distraction because it was “not focused on the economy.” How, he asked, was the fear felt by millions of Americans of being one serious illness away from financial ruin not considered an economic issue? Too often, Sperling found that we measured economic success by metrics like GDP instead of whether the economy was succeeding in lifting up the sense of meaning, purpose, fulfillment, and security of people. In Economic Dignity, Sperling frames the way forward in a time of wrenching change and offers a vision of an economy whose guiding light is the promotion of dignity for all Americans.