Applbaum Ethics for Adversaries

The Morality of Roles in Public and Professional Life
Core Textbook
ISBN: 978-1-4008-2293-5
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Web PDF

The adversary professions--law, business, and government, among others--typically claim a moral permission to violate persons in ways that, if not for the professional role, would be morally wrong. Lawyers advance bad ends and deceive, business managers exploit and despoil, public officials enforce unjust laws, and doctors keep confidences that, if disclosed, would prevent harm. Ethics for Adversaries is a philosophical inquiry into arguments that are offered to defend seemingly wrongful actions performed by those who occupy what Montaigne called "necessary offices."


Applbaum begins by examining the career of Charles-Henri Sanson, who is appointed executioner of Paris by Louis XVI and serves the punitive needs of the ancien régime for decades. Come the French Revolution, the King's Executioner becomes the king's executioner, and he ministers with professional detachment to each defeated political faction throughout the Terror and its aftermath. By exploring one extraordinary role and the arguments that can be offered in its defense, Applbaum raises unsettling doubts about arguments in defense of less sanguinary professions and their practices.


To justify harmful acts, adversaries appeal to arguments about the rules of the game, fair play, consent, the social construction of actions and actors, good outcomes in equilibrium, and the legitimate authority of institutions. Applbaum concludes that these arguments are weaker than supposed and do not morally justify much of the violation that professionals and public officials inflict. Institutions and the roles they create ordinarily cannot mint moral permissions to do what otherwise would be morally prohibited.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Applbaum, Arthur Isak

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments

Pt. I Necessary Offices 1

Ch. 1 Arguments for Adversaries 3

Ch. 2 Professional Detachment: The Executioner of Paris 15

Pt. II Roles and Reasons 43

Ch. 3 Doctor, Schmoctor: Practice Positivism and Its Complications 45

Ch. 4 The Remains of the Role 61

Ch. 5 Are Lawyers Liars? The Argument of Redescription 76

Pt. III Games and Violations 111

Ch. 6 Rules of the Game and Fair Play 113

Ch. 7 Are Violations of Rights Ever Right? 136

Ch. 8 Ethics in Equilibrium 175

Pt. IV Authority and Dissent 205

Ch. 9 Democratic Legitimacy and Official Discretion 207

Ch. 10 Montaigne's Mistake 240

Sources and Credits 261

Index 263

Über Autor(innen)

Arthur Isak Applbaum is Professor of Ethics and Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Director of Graduate Fellowships in the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Professions.