Social Ethics

Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in Without Going Crazy

Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in Without Going Crazy
$17.00
The challenges we face can be difficult even to think about. Climate change, the depletion of oil, economic upheaval, and mass extinction together create a planetary emergency of overwhelming proportions. Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face this crisis so that we can respond with unexpected resilience and creative power. Drawing on decades of teaching an empowerment approach known as the Work That Reconnects, the authors guide us through a transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality, and holistic science. This process equips us with tools to face the mess we're in and play our role in the collective transition, or Great Turning, to a life-sustaining society.
ISBN/SKU: 
9781577319726
Publication Date: 
2012-03-13
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African AIDS Epidemic: A History

African AIDS Epidemic: A History
$24.95

A Choice Significant University Press Titles for Undergraduates, 2005-2006

This history of the African AIDS epidemic is a much-needed, accessibly written historical account of the most serious epidemiological catastrophe of modern times. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History answers President Thabo Mbeki's provocative question as to why Africa has suffered this terrible epidemic.

While Mbeki attributed the causes to poverty and exploitation, others have looked to distinctive sexual systems practiced in African cultures and communities. John Iliffe stresses historical sequence. He argues that Africa has had the worst epidemic because the disease was established in the general population before anyone knew the disease existed. HIV evolved with extraordinary speed and complexity, and because that evolution took place under the eyes of modern medical research scientists, Iliffe has been able to write a history of the virus itself that is probably unique among accounts of human epidemic diseases. In giving the African experience a historical shape, Iliffe has written one of the most important books of our time.

The African experience of AIDS has taught the world much of what it knows about HIV/AIDS, and this fascinating book brings into focus many aspects of the epidemic in the longer context of massive demographic growth, urbanization, and social change in Africa during the latter half of the twentieth century. The African AIDS Epidemic: A History is a brilliant introduction to the many aspects of the epidemic and the distinctive character of the virus.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780821416891
Publication Date: 
2005-02-15
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Against Bioethics

Against Bioethics
$16.00

Argues that applied bioethics should embrace utilitarian decision analysis, thus avoiding recommendations expected to do more harm than good.

Governments, health professionals, patients, research institutions, and research subjects look to bioethicists for guidance in making important decisions about medical treatment and research. And yet, argues Jonathan Baron in Against Bioethics, applied bioethics lacks the authority of a coherent guiding theory and is based largely on intuitive judgments. Baron proposes an alternative, arguing that bioethics could have a coherent theory based on utilitarianism and decision analysis. Utilitarianism holds that the best option is the one that does the most expected good. Decision analysis provides a way of thinking about the risks and trade-offs of specific options. Like economics, utilitarian decision analysis makes predictions of expected good in complex situations, using data when possible, and focusing human judgment on the issues relevant to consequences. With such a guiding theory, bioethics would never yield decisions that clearly go against the expected good of those involved, as some do now.

Baron discusses issues in bioethics that can be illuminated by such analysis, including enhancements to nature in the form of genetics, drugs, and mind control; reproduction; death and end-of-life issues, including advance directives, euthanasia, and organ donation; coercion and consent; conflict of interest and the reform of internal review boards; and drug research. Although Baron opposes current practice in bioethics, he argues that by combining utilitarianism and decision analysis, bioethics can achieve its aims of providing authoritative guidance in resolving thorny medical and ethical issues.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780262524780
Publication Date: 
2007-08-24
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Aiming to Kill: The Ethics of Suicide and Euthanasia

Aiming to Kill: The Ethics of Suicide and Euthanasia
$20.00
For at least a generation, the debate over the morality of euthanasia and assisted suicide and their legalization has been going strong. We are all well aware of the main arguments for and against them, and their general profiles are widely known. In fact, in some instances there appear to be signs of weariness along the battle lines, with little hope of any decisive advance by either side... i.e., a stalemate. In Aiming to Kill, Biggar attempts to review as judiciously as possible the main lines of argument for and against the moral and legal permissibility of euthanasia and assisted suicide. He aspires to negotiate a way through to a mature judgment by taking account of the three basic elements of the controversy--the value of human life, the morality of acts of killing, and the fear of slippery slopes--and running a coherent argument through all of them. Biggar does not pretend to be neutral in the discussion, but rather is open to both sides of the argument and presents them in this manner.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780829815030
Publication Date: 
2004-09-28
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Arguing About War

Arguing About War
$16.00
A provocative discussion of recent wars and the issues that surround them, written by a preeminent political theorist
Michael Walzer is one of the world's most eminent philosophers on the subject of war and ethics. Now, for the first time since his classic Just and Unjust Wars was published almost three decades ago, this volume brings together his most provocative arguments about contemporary military conflicts and the ethical issues they raise.
The essays in the book are divided into three sections. The first deals with issues such as humanitarian intervention, emergency ethics, and terrorism. The second consists of Walzer's responses to particular wars, including the first Gulf War, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. And the third presents an essay in which Walzer imagines a future in which war might play a less significant part in our lives. In his introduction, Walzer reveals how his thinking has changed over time.
Written during a period of intense debate over the proper use of armed force, this book gets to the heart of difficult problems and argues persuasively for a moral perspective on war.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780300109788
Publication Date: 
2005-12-01
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At the Altar of Wall Street

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$22.00
Shows how economics functions as the dominant religion in America today

In this provocative book Scott Gustafson argues that economics functions in our current global culture as religions have functioned in other cultures. He describes and analyzes the rituals, pilgrimage sites, myths, prophets, sacraments, and mission of Economics to show how the Economy is our de facto God. Discussing such topics as debt, economic terrorism, globalization, and money as the Economy's sacrament, Gustafson's At the Altar of Wall Street encompasses a broad sweep of history, philosophy, culture studies, economic ideas, and religion in its trenchant analysis.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780802872807
Publication Date: 
2015-09-21
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At Work: Spirituality Matters

At Work: Spirituality Matters
$25.00
Making spirituality an integral part of the hectic workday is a key concern for the authors of At Work. They offer a number of solutions meant to help integrate these two worlds, all with a common theme--the positive renewal and transformation of both worker and workplace. Carefully avoiding the pat answers of pop psychology, At Work is instead an in-depth read for teachers, consultants, and people interested in making their work environment a more healthful and compassionate one.
ISBN/SKU: 
9781589661301
Publication Date: 
2006-08-01
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Attending Children: A Doctor's Education

Attending Children: A Doctor's Education
$16.95

In a fast-paced, complicated, and evermore dangerous world it is easy to become self-absorbed and consumed with our own problems. There is one place, however, where we put our self-centered concerns aside, and our deep, common humanity is profoundly touched. That place is where sick children dwell.

It is no less difficult--and perhaps even more difficult in many ways--for physicians who have chosen to attend to the health and well-being of gravely ill or dying children. Margaret Mohrmann has devoted most of her professional life to them, and in Attending Children she shares the remarkable education those children and their families have given her. Her narratives are both painful and hopeful, tragic and funny, full of remarkable characters and sometimes bizarre families.

Mohrmann has sifted through her thirty years as a pediatrician, and with poignancy, humor, and uncompromising honesty, she shares her sometimes stumbling but always deeply caring journey through a land where, sometimes, small hands have to be let go too soon. She introduces us to not only the physical challenges she, her colleagues, and her patients encounter, but the spiritual ones as well.

Attending Children is a unique experience as Mohrmann takes the reader on a doctor's rounds over many years to meet the faces and the struggles, the heartaches and the joys of being a pediatrician. In the case of Margaret Mohrmann and her patients, no one could ask for better teachers.

ISBN/SKU: 
9781589011076
Publication Date: 
2006-02-01
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Barbaric Heart: Faith, Money, and the Crisis of Nature

Barbaric Heart: Faith, Money, and the Crisis of Nature
$16.95
Smart, funny, and fresh, The Barbaric Heart argues that the present environmental crisis will not be resolved by the same forms of crony capitalism and managerial technocracy that created the crisis in the first place. With his trademark wit, White argues that the solution might very well come from an unexpected quarter: the arts, religion, and the realm of the moral imagination.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780981709123
Publication Date: 
2009-09-03
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Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional

Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional
$24.95

Professionals today wield an enormous public power. Collectively, their decisions affect the patient's plight, the client's fate, the student's future, the city's scape, the Earth's sustainability, the worker's fair treatment, and the durability of institution's great and small. Yet professionals do not perceive themselves as power wielders. They feel beleaguered, marginal, insufficiently appreciated, often under siege. Thus they tend to obscure for themselves their obligation to the common good. This book explores eight professions as they struggle with their double identity--as a means to livelihood and as a common calling in the spirit of public service. An interpretation of American culture emerges from its pages, as social critic William May opens up the ways in which each profession answers to something deep in the American spirit.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780664226718
Publication Date: 
2001-09-01
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Beyond Cheap Grace: A Call to Radical Discipleship, Incarnation, and Justice

Beyond Cheap Grace: A Call to Radical Discipleship, Incarnation, and Justice
$14.00
Foreword by Howard John Loewen

As our lives become complex with the demands of our affluent and accelerating society, do we hear the gospel's timeless and insistent call to live the "obedience of faith"? In these three "sermonic essays" Eldin Villafañe takes on the task of awakening true obedience of faith through the themes of discipleship, incarnation, and justice.

Beginning with discipleship, Villafañe draws on the "Christ hymn" of Philippians 2 to challenge Christians to choose the costly Christ-life. He then offers six contrarian perspectives on the incarnation from the early church as correctives to our current, culturally conditioned theological emphases. Finally, taking the book of Amos as a touchstone, Villafañe issues a call for just leadership among the nations.

Adding interest and depth to this work are an insightful foreword by Dean Loewen and thoughtful responses by Richard Peace, Juan Francisco Martinez, and Veli-Mattí Kärkkäinen. Villafañe's Beyond Cheap Grace incisively extends Christ's call to discipleship, incarnation, and justice to the church, the academy, and Christian leaders of all traditions.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780802863232
Publication Date: 
2006-07-01
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Beyond Idealism: A Way Ahead for Ecumenical Social Ethics

Beyond Idealism: A Way Ahead for Ecumenical Social Ethics
$25.00
Has the ecumenical movement lost its way? Does the prophetic voice of the churches gathered together still influence our societies? This text answers these questions and others, pointing to a new orientation in the field of ecumenical social thought at a time of crisis in the ecumenical movement.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780802831873
Publication Date: 
2006-04-18
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BioEngagement: Making a Christian Difference Through Bioethics Today

BioEngagement: Making a Christian Difference Through Bioethics Today
$22.00
While the Christian church has experienced extraordinary growth over the last century, Western culture has continued its seemingly inexorable drift into post-Christian forms. The contrast between our burgeoning churches and the scant impact that Christians have on public policy, the university, or the professions is distressing. And nowhere is this development more evident-and more consequential-than in the field of bioethics, where the dignity of human beings is constantly open to redefinition, and where much of our inheritance is coming under withering fire from those whose values are radically distinct from the Judeo-Christian tradition. This new volume takes seriously the Christian mandate to engage modern culture, giving specific attention to the urgent need for moral leadership as we encounter the difficult challenges posed by biotechnology. These insightful chapters by twenty leading activists, academics, and professionals discuss the contributions that a Christian perspective can and should make to the biomedical debate in today's most important forums-public policy and law, education, media, health care, and the church itself.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780802847935
Publication Date: 
2000-08-08
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Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues

Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues
$24.00

In recent years, bioethicists have worked on government commissions, on ethics committees in hospitals and nursing homes, and as bedside consultants. Because ethical knowledge is based on experience within the field rather than on universal theoretical propositions, it is open to criticism for its lack of theoretical foundation. Once in the clinic, however, ethicists noted the extent to which medical practice itself combined the certitudes of science with craft forms of knowledge. In an effort to forge a middle path between pure science and applied medical and ethical knowledge, bioethicists turned to the work of classical philosophy, especially the theme of a practical wisdom that entails a variable knowledge of particulars. In this book contemporary bioethicists and scholars of ancient philosophy explore the import of classical ethics on such pressing bioethical concerns as managed care, euthanasia, suicide, and abortion. Although the contributors write within the limits of their own disciplines, through cross references and counterarguments they engage in fruitful dialogue.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780262611770
Publication Date: 
2002-01-25
0
Publisher: 

Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City

Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City
$29.00

In Black on the Block, Mary Pattillo--a Newsweek Woman of the 21st Century--uses the historic rise, alarming fall, and equally dramatic renewal of Chicago's North Kenwood-Oakland neighborhood to explore the politics of race and class in contemporary urban America.
There was a time when North Kenwood-Oakland was plagued by gangs, drugs, violence, and the font of poverty from which they sprang. But in the late 1980s, activists rose up to tackle the social problems that had plagued the area for decades. Black on the Block tells the remarkable story of how these residents laid the groundwork for a revitalized and self-consciously black neighborhood that continues to flourish today. But theirs is not a tale of easy consensus and political unity, and here Pattillo teases out the divergent class interests that have come to define black communities like North Kenwood-Oakland. She explores the often heated battles between haves and have-nots, home owners and apartment dwellers, and newcomers and old-timers as they clash over the social implications of gentrification. Along the way, Pattillo highlights the conflicted but crucial role that middle-class blacks play in transforming such districts as they negotiate between established centers of white economic and political power and the needs of their less fortunate black neighbors. "A century from now, when today's sociologists and journalists are dust and their books are too, those who want to understand what the hell happened to Chicago will be finding the answer in this one."--Chicago Reader

"To see how diversity creates strange and sometimes awkward bedfellows . . . turn to Mary Pattillo's Black on the Block."--Boston Globe

ISBN/SKU: 
9780226649313
Publication Date: 
2007-03-01
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Blessed Assurance: At Home With the Bomb in Amarillo, Texas

Blessed Assurance: At Home With the Bomb in Amarillo, Texas
$1.00
Amarillo, a Bible-belt city in the Texas Panhandle, is the home of Pantex, the final assembly plant for all nuclear weapons in the United States. Through the microcosm of this city, A. G. Mojtabai takes a hard look at our nation and our habits of nuclear accommodation.The voices you hear are those of people working at Pantex, or living in Amarillo. Their narratives powerfully reveal their hopes and fears, their sense of the meaning of history, and the future of the human race.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780826310576
Publication Date: 
1988-05-01
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Blindsided by Grace: Entering the World of Disability

Blindsided by Grace: Entering the World of Disability
$14.99
An active pastor, husband, father, and triathlete, Bob Molsberry was nearly killed in 1997 in a hit and run accident on a rural highway. After a long period of recovery and rehabilitation, he is a paraplegic who has remained active in family, ministry, and athletics. The book reflects on his experience of disability not as a medical condition in search of a cure, nor as a tragedy to be pitied, but as a cross-cultural adventure similar to learning to live in a foreign country. Molsberry also offers biblical and theological reflection that confronts the Bible's perspectives on disability that it is a matter of heroic suffering or miraculous cure, and often interpreted as a consequence of sin.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780806645728
Publication Date: 
2000-09-05
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Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love

Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love
$30.00
Ellison and Thorson-Smith have co-edited a collection of essays in collaboration with two dozen prominent theologians, which plays of the controversial 1991 Presbyterian study they co-authored entitled "Keeping Body and Soul Together: Sexuality, Spiritually and Social Justice."
ISBN/SKU: 
9780829815610
Publication Date: 
2003-09-01
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Publisher: 

Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence: Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis

Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence: Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis
$15.00
Christian Churches and the Global AIDS Crisis More than twenty years into the global AIDS pandemic, the efforts of Christian congregations and denominations have been less than minimal. This book is aimed to awaken Christian compassion in the coming years to this fathomless tragedy. The worst health crisis in the world in 700 years, global HIV/AIDS epidemic is overwhelming in scale: 40 million people are infected worldwide (75% of them in Africa); 7000 people die daily; each day 1600 persons are infected. Some 26 million people have already died. ''At this unprecedented kairos moment in human history, '' says Messer, ''God is calling the church to a new mission and ministry.'' Drawing on his own involvement in global AIDS education in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, Messer uses stories, basic factual information, and theological insights to motivate lay and clerical Christians to assume leadership and form partnerships with Christians around the world in this struggle. Just as individuals must change their behavior to prevent and eliminate AIDS, so must congregations and church leaders. Compassion, not condemnation, is desperately needed, says Messer. But financial resources for education and prevention programs are also urgently required from churches. Messer shows how churches can partner with ecumenical organizations, relief agencies, volunteer mission programs, healthcare programs, and other agencies to engage global AIDS directly and effectively.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780800636418
Publication Date: 
2004-03-01
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Business and Religion: A Clash of Civilizations?

Business and Religion: A Clash of Civilizations?
$64.00
Since the late 1960s, American culture has been involved in a struggle to articulate an effective business ethics. The scandals of Enron and WorldCom constitute egregious examples of the absence or deficiency of ethical decision-making in matters of commerce. The purpose of this volume is to inaugurate a dialogue on the common elements of all three Abrahamic traditions - Christianity, Islam, and Judaism - that touch on ethical issues in business. With more than 40 scholars, religious and business leaders joining the debate, this anthology is the beginning of a reconstruction of the understanding of the relationship between religion and commerce.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780976404101
Publication Date: 
2005-08-01
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Publisher: 

Business Religion Spirituality: A New Synthesis

Business Religion Spirituality: A New Synthesis
$25.00
Spirituality seems to be a basic human good essential for human flourishing. This work raises questions about spirituality in the workplace. What are the moral questions that should guide leaders? Is spirituality being treated as simply an instrumental good, valued for its usefulness in enhancing productivity and well-being? What are the responsibilities of business leaders? Of business schools and their faculty? This work reflects on these and other pertinent questions.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780268021740
Publication Date: 
2004-02-03
0

Business, Religion, and Spirituality: A New Synthesis

Business, Religion, and Spirituality: A New Synthesis
$44.00
$55.00
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$11.00
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Spirituality seems to be a basic human good essential for human flourishing. This work raises questions about spirituality in the workplace. What are the moral questions that should guide leaders? Is spirituality being treated as simply an instrumental good, valued for its usefulness in enhancing productivity and well-being? What are the responsibilities of business leaders? Of business schools and their faculty? This work reflects on these and other pertinent questions.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780268021733
Publication Date: 
2004-02-03
0

Capital Punishment: A Reader (Pilgrim Library of Ethics)

Capital Punishment: A Reader (Pilgrim Library of Ethics)
$24.95
Can it ever be acceptable for a humane society to put a human being to death? In this new volume in The Pilgrim Library of Ethics, a wide range of contributors, including recognized theologians, ethicists, and writers, explore all angles of the wrenching subject of capital punishment.Arguments often turn on how this form of justice functions within the larger social order. Retributionists argue that this extreme penalty is needed to restore social order. Advocates of the common good counter that capital punishment's biases against the poor, members of minorities, and those with little education spread social cynicism and disrespect for the law.Scapegoat theorists contend that execution is a form of ritual sacrifice intended to redeem the body politic. In contrast, proponents of society's need to decrease the number of murders posit that capital punishment diverts passion away from effective measures that could reduce the rate of homicides.For those who want a single-volume source of balanced, accessible information and who seek to formulate their own informed opinion, Capital Punishment: A Reader is an essential resource.Books in The Pilgrim Library of Ethics address the most significant moral issues of our time. Each volume is designed for both classroom and general use, and features about thirty outstanding articles, essays, and official statements by foremost thinkers and institutions.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780829811780
Publication Date: 
1998-11-01
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Catholic Ethicists on HIV/AIDS Prevention

Catholic Ethicists on HIV/AIDS Prevention
$17.47
$24.95
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An eye-opening demonstration of how Catholic moral theology works in the concrete...[Keenan shows that] the Catholic tradition of moral theology is robust, timely, supple, humane and, most of all, wise enough to make vital contributions to ongoing global discussions about the current state of the Body of Christ. -National Catholic Reporter
ISBN/SKU: 
9780826412300
Publication Date: 
2000-05-01
0
Publisher: 

Child Poverty: Love, Justice, and Social Responsibility

Child Poverty: Love, Justice, and Social Responsibility
$24.00
Child Poverty: Love, Justice, and Social Responsibility serves as a tool for those who wish to become instigators of love and justice in the world. Developed from a nine-year task force for the United Methodist Bishops Initiative on Children and Poverty, Child Poverty explores the possibilities for the church to assume a responsibility for children with needs in the local community, state, nation, and around the world. Children who are economically poor face many of the same problems as children with more economic means, yet poverty concentrates problems in the lives of poor children. Problems that should be merely an inconvenience turn out to be life threatening for some children. Through analysis of concrete cases and ministries, Child Poverty demonstrates that the flourishing of poor children and all children is best supported by interdependent conditions of both love and justice. Just as children and poverty are interconnected, so too should be love and justice.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780827205093
Publication Date: 
2007-12-01
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