ERA Philosophy Book Chapters Copyright (c) 2013 University of Notre Dame Australia All rights reserved. http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/era_phil_chapters Recent documents in ERA Philosophy Book Chapters en-us Sat, 26 Jan 2013 23:34:37 PST 3600 Friendship, Ethics and Democracy http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/era_phil_chapters/2 http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/era_phil_chapters/2 Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:51:17 PDT This paper focuses on Aristotle's portrayal of the highest and the ideal form of friendship. It explores the contribution that Aristotle makes to understandings of the relationship between the private and public spheres of life and the relevance of his views on friendship to the formation of community and to the sustenance of democratic forms of life. It does so by offering an interpretation of Kant's moral theory which aims to resolve the tension between Aristotle's notion of civic friendship (in his ethical and political writings) and a more personal or apolitical model of friendship (evident in his Ethics). In the process, the paper offers a critique of the significant moral qualities attaching to friendship.

]]> Sandra Lynch God and Persons http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/era_phil_chapters/1 http://researchonline.nd.edu.au/era_phil_chapters/1 Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:59:17 PDT Our thinking about persons owes much to ancient and medieval debates - debates that often do not mention "person' but may be about happiness, practical deliberation, freedom, substance, Jesus Christ, the Trinity. On Boethius' famous definition ("a person is an individual substance of a rational nature"1), which Aquinas approved: 2 persons are individuals (not classes, aggregates or universals); substances (not relations, properties or philosophical categories); and distinguished by rationality (not sentience, activated intelligence or developmental stage). To this medieval legacy our modern concept of person adds various notions derived from the moral thought of thinkers such as Rousseau and Kant. Persons are not objects: they have a unique form of value ("dignity"); they cannot serve purely as means to other people's plans; their exercise of choice is self-making and self-ruling (they have "autonomy"); they are to be treated as of equal status, and offered any necessary help or protection (shown "respect"). These are the essentials of the view of persons to which radical philosophers today often respond, sometimes agreeing but often exaggerating one element at the cost of the others. This view is also closer than any other academic view of popular thinking on persons, though the radical attack is undoubtedly affecting popular perceptions.

ISBN: 978-0-7546-3438-6

]]> Hayden Ramsay