Abortion, distribution of wealth, civil disobedience, reverse discrimination, sex-role stereotyping, censorship what does philosophy have to contribute to these practical moral issues? In this important book, first published in 1982, Robin Barrow argues convincingly that the capacity to make fine conceptual discriminations is crucial to an informed response to such issues, and he alerts us to the degree to which this ability has been lacking in much previous philosophical thought.

The author presents a series of formidable arguments regarding the more controversial social and moral...

In this book, first published in 1991, the author Dr Robin Barrow adopts the view that utilitarianism is the most coherent and persuasive ethical theory we have and argues in favour of a specific form of rule-utilitarianism. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy.

In this text, first published in 1993, Barrow decisively rejects the traditional assumption that intelligence has no educational significance and contends instead that intelligence is developed by the enlargement of understanding. Arguing that much educational research is driven by a concept of intelligence that has no obvious educational relevance, Dr Barrow suggests that this is partly due to a widespread lack of understanding about the nature and point of philosophical analysis, and partly due to a failure to face up to the value judgements that are necessarily involved in analysing a...

This book, first published in 1984, aims to bring together the interests of the theory and practice of the education system and, within the former, relate the approaches and claims of the constituent disciplines to each other. Throughout the book, while arguing for the importance of facing up to the logical links between theory and practice, the author seeks to point out the extent to which more educational theory has had little to say of importance for practice, either because it has been a poor theory or because it has concerned itself with matters of little significance to educators....

It is widely agreed that education should involve the development of understanding, critical thinking, imagination, and emotions. However, this book, first published in 1990, argues that our views to these key concepts are confused and inaccurate, and therefore what we do in schools is generally inappropriate to our ideal. This book will be of interest to students of education and philosophy.