Description
Product ID: | 9781781680186 |
Product Form: | Paperback / softback |
Country of Manufacture: | GB |
Series: | Radical Thinkers |
Title: | Ethics |
Subtitle: | An Essay on the Understanding of Evil |
Authors: | Author: Alain Badiou, Peter Hallward |
Page Count: | 224 |
Subjects: | Ethics and moral philosophy, Ethics & moral philosophy, Popular philosophy, Popular philosophy |
Description: | Select Guide Rating Alain Badiou, one of the most powerful voices in contemporary French philosophy, shows how our prevailing ethical principles serve ultimately to reinforce an ideology of the status quo and fail to provide a framework for an effective understanding of the concept of evil. Ethical questions dominate current political and academic agendas. While government think-tanks ponder the dilemmas of bio-ethics, medical ethics and professional ethics, respect for human rights and reverence for the Other have become matters of broad consensus. Alain Badiou, one of the most powerful voices in contemporary French philosophy, explodes the facile assumptions behind this recent ethical turn. He shows how our prevailing ethical principles serve ultimately to reinforce an ideology of the status quo, and fail to provide a framework for an effective understanding of the concept of evil. In contrast, Badiou summons up an "ethic of truths" which is designed both to sustain and inspire a disciplined, subjective adherence to a militant cause (be it political or scientific, artistic or romantic), and to discern a finely demarcated zone of application for the concept of evil. He defends an effectively super-human integrity over the respect for merely human rights, asserts a partisan universality over the negotiation of merely particular interests, and appeals to an "immortal" value beyond the protection of mortal privileges. |
Imprint Name: | Verso Books |
Publisher Name: | Verso Books |
Country of Publication: | GB |
Publishing Date: | 2013-01-15 |