Author : Virginia Held
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226325881
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)
Book Synopsis Rights and Goods by : Virginia Held
Download or read book Rights and Goods written by Virginia Held and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989-07-19 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theories of justice, argues Virginia Held, are usually designed for a perfect, hypothetical world. They do not give us guidelines for living in an imperfect world in which the choices and decisions that we must make are seldom clear-cut. Seeking a morality based on actual experience, Held offers a method of inquiry with which to deal with the specific moral problems encountered in daily life. She argues that the division between public and private morality is misleading and shows convincingly that moral judgment should be contextual. She maps out different approaches and positions for various types of issues, including membership in a state, legal decisions, political activities, economic transactions, interpersonal relations, diplomacy, journalism, and determining our obligation to future generations. Issues such as these provide the true test of moral theory, since its success is seen in the willingness of conscientious persons to commit themselves to it by acting on it in their daily lives.