In this chapter, we explore this possibility when it comes to the three most known exploitative work forms slavery, serfdom and wage labour. It turns out that they all have an attached ideology, explaining why respective way of organising work is the only morally good and therefore meaningful one. Each work form is portrayed as the single one being beneficial to all involved and thereby meaningful to all. Slavery is good for slave owners as well as slaves, serfdom for feudal lords as well as serfs, wage labour for capitalists as well as wage labourers. Each ideology also says that all other work forms are morally reprehensible and therefore meaningless. The aim of the chapter is to illustrate that the theorisation of the concept of work in the way we suggest opens up the possibility of comparative studies of the meaning of different work forms.

This chapter addresses why and how, if it is true that pessimism is a psychological condition as opposed to a philosophical belief, Nietzsche takes there to be a requirement to combat pessimism in ways other than the rational-dialectical manner prevalent among philosophers hitherto. The chapter first offers a conceptual analysis of the closely related but distinct notion(s) of ‘nihilism’, before then arguing how the notorious idea of ‘eternal recurrence’ is, contrary to some contemporary interpretations, specifically deployed by Nietzsche as a response to pessimism. The chapter ends by elucidating Nietzsche’s reversion to the view of The Birth of Tragedy that aesthetic experience is solely capable of facilitating life affirmation, and how aesthetic value is not only distinct but also in tension with moral value.

This chapter introduces the central questions that are explored in the book. Not only do legal systems enforce morality but they ought to do so. The legitimacy of legal prohibitions on a host of moral wrongs such as murder, rape and burglary is widely taken for granted and not subject to serious dispute. Since legal systems do and ought to enforce morality, the interesting question is not whether the law should enforce morality. The interesting questions concern what parts of morality the law ought to enforce, the considerations that justify its enforcement, how the law ought to enforce morality, the relationship between the legal and social enforcement of morality and whether there are moral limits that constrain the enforcement of morality, and if so, what are the nature and justifications for these limits. In the course of introducing these questions, the chapter distinguishes different senses of enforcement, as this notion applies to both legal norms and social norms more generally. It distinguishes a broad from a narrow understanding of morality and further distinguishes critical from social conceptions of morality. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the relation between principled limits on the enforcement of morality and pragmatic reasons for imposing such limits.

Voters are the MVP of any coalition if they are engaged with the coalitions Agenda. How should a business publicly articulate its agenda in order to maximize voter engagement? Or, alternatively, how can messaging reduce the publics engagement with the opposing coalitions agenda? This chapter deals with these questions.

In this chapter, MCP and B&L-E are applied to contemporary politeness phenomena in the Chinese linguaculture. Four areas are selected for analysis: Self-denigration and self-presentation, moral order and morality, conflict resolution, and humorous mockery. These areas – which would seem to be disparate at first sight – are expected to display different politeness principles at work. However, Chen shows that MCP and B&L-E, working together, offer a unified account for all while, at the same time, are capable of revealing differences among them. Humorous mockery, for instance, has been viewed by some as a genre to which politeness does not apply. Chen’s analysis demonstrates that it does, as long as one sees it as a tug-of-war between self-politeness and other-politeness.

Suicide has long been a topic of social discourse, with pendulating views of the phenomenon. This chapter highlights how social, cultural, and religious views on the morality of suicide shifted over time and discusses today’s current understanding of suicide as a public health crisis. Early documentations of suicide highlight it as a means by which to avoid becoming a spoil of war or avoiding dishonor. With the rise of Christianity, suicide came to be viewed as a mortal sin, one that could result in the punishment of surviving family members. Perspectives on the morality of suicide have vacillated over time, with current times viewing suicide not as an issue of morality but as a public health issue. Despite years of suicide prevention efforts, suicide rates in the United States have generally remained stubborn. Given the complex nature of suicide, it will likely require integrated interventions and resources that cross clinical and community realms.

In Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, prescriptive and descriptive analysis are intertwined. While incentives analysis is strictly descriptive, the motivation of the analysis is prescriptive as are the motivations for its prescriptions. For Smith, wealth tends to promote justice; it also tends to be a consequence of justice. Poverty tends to create injustices instead, and to be a consequence of injustice. Understanding how to increase the wealth of a nation is thus understanding how to increase its justice. The perverse incentives of special interests are destructive forces of both wealth and justice. Smith called Wealth of Nations a violent attack against the British commercial system because, in the interpretation offered here, the entire apparatus of the British Empire was the result of those perverse incentives of special interest groups that not only generated inefficient monopolies but also, and especially, generated gross injustices for the weakest members of society.

Machiavelli cannot accomplish conversion of the world by himself. He has to convince future philosophers to follow or obey him. This is his succession problem.

In our modern times, it can feel like we have lost a sense of right and wrong, adding to feelings of fear and uncertainty. In this chapter we talk about how many of the resilient people we interviewed, including United States service members who were Vietnam War prisoners of war, used their moral compass to emotionally survive life-threatening situations. Building up and sticking to a moral compass takes practice, good role models, and a willingness to do the “right thing” despite personal consequences.

Gambling in this period was never just about gambling; it always represented something else or spoke to some bigger set of concerns. It was thought to be a neutered form of aggression, made socially acceptable through the relentless power of the civilizing process but flowering in the novel context of the resort casino. Gambling was a way to connect to prior forms of existence, and it functioned as a substitute for socially unacceptable practices. Gambling is also contrasted with other forms of risk: insurance and speculation. Some observers took a pro-gambling approach, noting the unique skills it cultivates or its basis in nature.

The Cave analogy in Book 7 of the Republic admits of no single consistent interpretation. It communicates not one philosophical vision but two. One is developed in the initial narrative, which tells its own compelling story, dropping plenty of hints – varying in directness or mysteriousness – on how it is to be read. The other vision is articulated mostly in the philosophical commentary on the Cave that Plato’s Socrates supplies when he tells his interlocutor Glaucon how to decode it. We should take the commentary as enunciating inter alia a set of instructions not on what the narrative means as originally articulated, but on how it is to be reread as an allegory of the trainee philosopher’s education. The Cave as narrated begins as a moral and political allegory of the condition of ordinary people in the city – in the first instance, the democratic city – and of their need for redemption from it. The Cave as reinterpreted in philosophical commentary is an image of the reorientation of the soul which can be achieved by the practice of mathematics. Consistency of interpretation as between original narrative and subsequent commentary is therefore not mandatory.

The Conclusion summarises pathways towards a wider theoretical trajectory for studying theatre anthropologically. What can public art institutions, especially theatres, tell us about the ethical relevance of art in German and European society today? How do artists in such institutions reflect on their practice, methods, and theories, and in doing so, what kinds of expertise do they develop? What methods and theoretical frameworks do we require to develop new approaches to professional public theatre today? The conclusion constitutes an outlook on the wider import and significance of this interdisciplinary study for anthropology, theatre, and performance theory.

Although Gellius is fully committed to the fashion for pre-classical authors, admiring them as writers and not merely as quarries for striking words or exponents of sound morality, comparison of his quotations with Ciceros shows a shift in taste away from raw power towards greater sophistication. His understanding of the passages cited, in so far as the state of their texts allows us to judge, is generally sound; however, some comments need a closer examination.

Citizenship-from-below constitutes one element of youth everyday citizenship. When asked the meaning of good citizenship, youth report emotional closeness, joy, and gratitude as key localized components, as well as moral character and concern over preserving one’s reputation. They particularly emphasize that citizenship manifests in local volunteering to help others and collective problem solving, and they often connect these acts to a broader commitment to building the nation. We juxtapose these youth perspectives with Afrobarometer data on reported attendance at community meetings and membership in a community or volunteer group to find that, although youth engage in formalized ways less frequently than their elders, they are locally engaged. They continuously contest their citizenship, framing it as distinct from that of their elders and highlighting their particular local contributions (e.g., security provision and environmental protection). Despite urban environments that stress individuality and uncertainty, urban youth citizenship is highly relational and embedded in obligations that undergird belonging.