This collection of essays by noted philosopher Samuel Scheffler combines discussion of abstract questions in moral and political theory with attention to the normative dimension of current social and political controversies. In addition to chapters on more abstract issues such as the nature of human valuing, the role of partiality in ethics, and the significance of the distinction between doing and allowing, the volume also includes essays on immigration, terrorism, toleration, political equality, and the normative significance of tradition.

Uniting the essays is a shared preoccupation...

In contemporary philosophy, substantive moral theories are typically classified as either consequentialist or deontological. Standard consequentialist theories insist, roughly, that agents must always act so as to produce the best available outcomes overall. Standard deontological theories, by contrast, maintain that there are some circumstances where one is permitted but not required to produce the best overall results, and still other circumstances in which one is positively forbidden to do so. Classical utilitarianism is the most familiar consequentialist view, but it is widely regarded as...

This exceptional work--a collection of eleven essays by one of the most fascinating moral philosophers currently writing--explores a perspective that is at once sympathetic towards and critical of liberal political philosophy. The essays address the capacity of liberal thought, and of the moral traditions on which it draws, to accommodate a variety of challenges posed by the changing circumstances of the modern world. They also consider how, in an era of rapid globalization, when our lives are structured by social arrangements and institutions of ever-increasing size, complexity, and scope,...