Böcker i Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy-serien

This book addresses the topic of 'being bound' from a philosophical and a sociological perspective. It examines several ways in which we are bound. We are bound to acknowledge the truth and to follow laws; we are bound to others and to the world. Who we are is partly defined by those bonds, regardless of whether we live up to them - or even of whether we acknowledge them. Puzzling questions arise from the fact that we are bound, such as: How are those bonds binding? Wherein lies their normative character? A venerable philosophical tradition, particularly since Kant, has provided an account of normativity that crucially appeals to such notions as "e;self-legislation."e; But can our normative bonds be properly understood in these essentially first-personal terms? Many argue that our social condition resists any account of those bonds that fails to acknowledge the perspectives of the second and the third person.The first part of the book explores these themes from a historical perspective in the tradition of transcendental philosophy (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger); it examines the phenomenon of "e;being bound"e;, i.e., why and how we are bound. The second part of the book offers a sociological analysis of social bonds that is both historical and systematic. Based on sociological approaches to "e;solidarity"e; and "e;reflexivity"e;, it explores the way in which the phenomenon of "e;being bound"e; manifests through the concept of a "e;social relation"e;.

Running contrary to much contemporary thought, this book argues that Aristotelian virtue ethics allows for at least some action-guiding moral principles to be true unconditionally and that justifying these principles can be done within Aristotelian theory.

In this book, the author disputes the recent trend in metaethics that focuses on reasons rather than norms. The reader is invited to take a new look at the traditional metaethical questions of moral semantics, ontology, and epistemology.

The anthology is organized around four parts: i) The concept of paternalism and theoretical issues regarding the idea of anti-paternalism, ii) strategies for justifying different forms of paternalism, iii) paternalism in psychiatry and psychotherapy, iv) paternalism and public health, and v) paternalism and reproductive medicine.

The papers collected here represent the most recent work on a much neglected problem in practical reasoning.

Robert Heeger has been professor of ethics at Utrecht University since 1977, both at the Faculty of Theology and at the Faculty of Philosophy. Moreover, he was one of the first moral philosophers in the Netherlands, and even in Europe, to be involved in environmental ethics and in animal and veterinary ethics.