A Theory of Justice
A01=Arthur Isak Applbaum
Acquiescence
Admissible evidence
Advocacy journalism
After Virtue
Asymmetry
Attempt
Author_Arthur Isak Applbaum
Bankruptcy
Bribery
Business ethics
Category=QDTQ
Caveat emptor
Civil disobedience
Civil service
Coercion
Consent
Consent of the governed
Consequentialism
Contract
Contractualism
Controversy
Conventionalism
Cover-up
Declaratory judgment
Deference
Deliberation
Dirty hands
Discretion
Distrust
Duty to warn
Economic efficiency
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Ethical dilemma
Ethical egoism
Executive privilege
Externality
Falsity
Fraud
Freedom of speech
Good and evil
Good faith
Henry David Thoreau
Hypocrisy
Idealization
Impasse
Impossibility
Inference
Injunction
Institution
Insurgency
Involuntary servitude
John Rawls
Judicial disqualification
Jurisdiction
Law in action
Legal burden of proof
Legal practice
Legitimacy (political)
Liberalism
Milgram experiment
Misrepresentation
Moral agency
Moral authority
Moral luck
Moral responsibility
Morality
Necessity
Negligence
Non-lethal weapon
Obedience (human behavior)
Obligation
Obstruction of justice
Opportunism
Original intent
Pacifism
Paternalism
Personhood
Presumption
Principal-agent problem
Prosecutor
Public figure
Public reason
Puffery
Realism (international relations)
Reasonable person
Sharp practice
Superiority (short story)
Torture
Trespass
Utilitarianism
Volenti non fit injuria
Product details
- ISBN 9780691057392
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 30 Jul 2000
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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 regime 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.
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.
