Ethics And Public Policy

Ethics and Public Policy:€A Philosophical Inquiry€is the first book to subject important and controversial areas of public policy, such as drugs, health and€gambling€to philosophical scrutiny.

Developed by D. Don Welch during his 28 years of teaching ethics and public policy, the rationale behind A Guide to Ethics and Public Policy is to present a comprehensive guide for making policy judgments. Rather than present specific cases that raise moral issues or discuss the role a few concepts play in the moral analysis of policy, this book instead provides a broad framework for the moral evaluation of public policies and policy proposals. This framework is organized around guiding five principles: benefit, effectiveness, fairness, fidelity, and legitimacy. These principles identify the factors that should be taken into account and the issues that should be addressed as citizens address the question of what the United States government should be able to do. Organized by concept, with illustrations and examples frequently interspersed, the book covers both theory and specific issues. A Guide to Ethics and Public Policy outlines a comprehensive ethical framework, provides content to the meaning of the five principles that comprise that framework through the use of illustrations and examples, and offers guidance about how to navigate one’s way through the conflicts and dilemmas that inevitably result from a serious effort to analyze policies.

Exploring the ethical frameworks and principles upon which governments can and should base their policies, this study draws on papers from the 2009 Ethical Foundations of Public Policy conference held in Wellington, covering topics such as ethics in decision making and advice giving, sustainability, equality and justice, and measuring progress. The examination contends that interplay between ethical considerations and policy creation is often complex, controversial, and challenging but that the careful management of this interplay is vital to the effective functioning of liberal, democratic government. Demonstrating the inextricable link between ethics and public policy, this is essential reading for policymakers, students, and those interested in the policy process.

What does it mean to do public policy ethics today? How should philosophers engage with ethical issues in policy-making when policy decisions are circumscribed by political and pragmatic concerns? How do ethical issues in public policy differ between areas such as foreign policy, criminal justice, or environmental policy? The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy addresses all these questions and more, and is the first handbook of its kind. It is comprised of 41 chapters written by leading international contributors, and is organised into four clear sections covering the following key topics: Methodology: philosophical approaches to public policy, ethical expertise, knowledge, and public policy Democracy and public policy: identity, integration and inclusion: voting, linguistic policy, discrimination, youth policy, religious toleration, and the family Public goods: defence and foreign policy, development and climate change, surveillance and internal security, ethics of welfare, healthcare and fair trade, sovereignty and territorial boundaries, and the ethics of nudging Public policy challenges: criminal justice, policing, taxation, poverty, disability, reparation, and ethics of death policies. The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, politics, and social policy. It will be equally useful to those in related disciplines, such as economics and law, or professional fields, such as business administration or policy-making in general.

What makes a policy work? What should policies attempt to do, and what ought they not do? These questions are at the heart of both policy-making and ethics. Philosophy, Ethics and Public Policy: An Introduction examines these questions and more. Andrew I. Cohen uses contemporary examples and controversies, mainly drawn from policy in a North American context, to illustrate important flashpoints in ethics and public policy, such as: public policy and globalization: sweatshops; medicine and the developing world; immigration marriage, family and education: same-sex marriage; women and the family; education and Intelligent Design justifying and responding to state coercion: torture; reparations and restorative justice the ethics of the body and commodification: the human organ trade, and factory farming of animals. Each chapter illustrates how ethics offers ways of prioritizing some policy alternatives and imagining new ones. Reflecting on various themes in globalization, markets, and privacy, the chapters are windows to enduring significant debates about what states may do to shape our behavior. Overall, the book will help readers understand how ethics can frame policymaking, while also suggesting that sometimes the best policy is no policy. Including annotated further reading, this is an excellent introduction to a fast-growing subject for students in Philosophy, Public Policy, and related disciplines.

Whether the law should permit voluntary euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is one of the most vital questions facing all modern societies. Internationally, the main obstacle to legalisation has proved to be the objection that, even if they were morally acceptable in certain 'hard cases', voluntary euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide could not be effectively controlled; society would slide down a 'slippery slope' to the killing of patients who did not make a free and informed request, or for whom palliative care would have offered an alternative. How cogent is this objection? This book provides the general reader (who need have no expertise in philosophy, law or medicine) with a lucid introduction to this central question in the debate, not least by reviewing the Dutch euthanasia experience. It will interest all in any country whether currently for or against legalisation, who wish to ensure that their opinions are better informed.

Most philosophers and political scientists readily admit that Thomas Hobbes is a significant figure in the history of political thought. His theory was, arguably, one of the first to provide a justification for political legitimacy from the perspective of each individual subject. Many excellent books and articles have examined the justification and structure of Hobbes’ commonwealth, ethical system, and interpretation of Christianity. What is troubling is that the Hobbesian project has been largely missing in the applied ethics and public policy literature. We often find applications of Kantian deontology, Bentham’s or Mill’s utilitarianism, Rawls’s contractualism, the ethics of care, and various iterations of virtue ethics. Hobbesian accounts are routinely ignored and often derided. This is unfortunate because Hobbes’s project offers a unique perspective. To ignore it, when such a perspective would be fruitful to apply to another set of theoretical questions, is a problem in need of a remedy. This volume seeks to eliminate (or, at the very least, partially fill) this gap in the literature. Not only will this volume appeal to those that are generally familiar with Hobbesian scholarship, it will also appeal to a variety of readers that are largely unfamiliar with Hobbes.

Years have passed since the end of the War of the Lance. The people of Ansalon have rebuilt their lives, their houses, their families. The Companions of the Lance, too, have returned to their homes, raising children and putting the days of their heroic deeds behind them. But peace on Krynn comes at a price. The forces of darkness are ever vigilant, searching for ways to erode the balance of power and take control. When subtle changes begin to permeate the fragile peace, new lives are drawn into the web of fate woven around all the races. The time has come to pass the sword ? or the staff ? to the children of the Lance. They are the Second Generation. An all-new audiobook edition of a classic Dragonlance novel. This book of five novellas bridges the gap between the Chronicles and Legends trilogies and Dragons of Summer Flame. While detailing their adventures, The Second Generation also sets up key events and characters in future Dragonlance novels.