Bøger af Ted Honderich

New edition of classic title on the morality of terrorism

Ted Honderich's Punishment is the best-known book on the justifications put forward for state punishment. *BR**BR*This enlarged and developed edition brings his writing to a new audience. With new chapters on determinism and responsibility, plus a new conclusion, the book also remains true to its original realism about almost all talk of retribution and proportionality. Honderich investigates all the commonsensical notions of why and when punishment is morally necessary, engaging with the language of public debate by politicians and other public figures. Honderich then puts forward his own argument that punishment is legitimate when it is in accord with the principle of humanity.*BR**BR*Written in a clear, sharp style and seasoned with a dry wit, this is the most important work on the reasoning behind our penal systems. It is a pleasure to read for philosophers and non-philosophers alike.

Is your consciousness neural events in your head? Is it anything in there? On Consciousness offers answers to the question of the very nature of consciousness, and the separate question of how consciousness is related to the brain. It begins with Anomalous Monism, a doctrine seemingly to the effect that mind and brain are one thing with two kinds of properties not lawfully connected. It goes on to consider the thinking of neuroscientists and then functionalists. It reconsiders Honderich's own Union Theory, and the anti-individualism that disconnects the mind from the brain. These doctrines are examined in terms of whether they satisfy our agreed criteria for decent accounts of consciousness. The book leads up to the question: 'What is it like for you to be aware of the room you are in?' The bold new answer is: 'It is for the room in a way to exist'. Such an answer gives rise to analyses of reflective and affective consciousness as well, such as thinking and feeling. On Consciousness respects the most resilient proposition in the history of the philosophy of mind - that consciousness isn't just cells. It also makes all of consciousness a proper subject for science.

The moral and political arguments, judgements and commitments of Britain's outstanding radical philosopher.What society ought we to have, and what can we do to try to get it? This book sets out to answer these questions beginning with a new essay on the foundation of a liberalism of means and ends, John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. It goes on to consider the culmination of liberal thinking in John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. It argues that liberalism is good intentions not carried forward into rational commitment. Conservatism, in its past and its present guises, is also made clear in its reality. So too is the leftism of the past, including G. A. Cohen's attempt to save Karl Marx's theory of history. Both are discarded. The book argues for another political and social morality - the generosity and fellow-feeling of the Principle of Humanity. It is a consequentialist rather than a mysterious morality, and its essential idea is that we should take rational steps to rescue the badly-off from lives of wretchedness and other distress. This is the commitment that led to Ted Honderich's human and passionate response to 9/11, After the Terror - the most controversial book of serious philosophy published in Britain since A. J. Ayer's Language, Truth and Logic in 1936. A further chapter considers hierarchic democracy - the democracy we have as distinct from the democracy we think we have - and the necessity of mass civil disobedience. The book ends with an essay that adds to the thinking of After the Terror, particularly on the moral right of the Palestinians to their resistance.

This is a new edition of a classic work by one of the world's leading progressive political philosophers. Ted Honderich examines ideology and reality in British and American politics*BR*in order to establish the true distinctions of conservatism.*BR**BR*Conservatives often claim to believe in reform, but not change, to rely on instinct rather than abstract theories. So what is the conservative rationale? Does conservatism have a philosophical founding principle that unifies it?*BR**BR*Ted Honderich's search for the fundamental principle of conservatism is an enlightening one. He examines influential thinkers in the conservative tradition, from Edmund Burke and Adam Smith to Michael Oakeshott and Robert Nozick. He brings rigorous analytic philosophy to bear on the Republican party in the United States, and the Conservative party and the New Labour party in Britain.

A philosophical reflection on morality and terrorism by one of the most remarkable thinkers of our day.

The most recalcitrant problem of philosophy, free will, laid out and taken beyond unsatisfactory standard solutions by Britain's foremost working philosopher.Determinism comes in many forms, some confused, some inconsistent, some incomplete. Some philosophers maintain that determinism is incompatible with true freedom. And others, that determinism is no threat to our freedom. But are these philosophers really assigning an 'unfreedom' to us and merely pretending that we are responsible for our choices and acts of love and violence?Ted Honderich argues that there are strong reasons to think both positions wrong. Developing from where his earlier work left off, he considers there is a new and more difficult problem of determinism. It too can lead to the thought that we are unfree but morally responsible. As he demonstrates, the hardest and deepest question in philosophy needs a really different answer.