This new book reflects Derrida's latest views on the role of education and international organizations in an era of globalization. In this book, Derrida develops a notion of the global citizen that is uniquely post-Kantian. He looks especially at the changing role of UNESCO and similar organizations at a time when individual and national identities, knowledge and commerce, and human rights all are brought to world attention in new ways than they have been in the past. Following Derrida's writings on these issues, prominent scholars engage in a dialogue with him on his approach to understanding the ethics of international institutions and education today.

This volume reflects Jacques Derrida's views on the role of education and international organizations in an era of globalization. Derrida develops a notion of the global citizen that is uniquely post-Kantian. He looks especially at the changing role of UNESCO and similar organizations at a time when individual and national identities, knowledge and commerce, and human rights are all brought to world attention in new ways. Following Derrida's writings on these issues, prominent scholars engage in a dialogue with him on his approach to understand the ethics of international institutions and education.

The legal regulations and formal rules of democracy alone are not enough to hold a society together and govern its processes. Yet the irreducible ethical pluralism that characterizes contemporary society seems to make it impossible to impose a single system of values as a source of social cohesion and identity reference. In this book, Lucio Cortella argues that Hegel's theory of ethical life can provide such a grounding and makes the case through an analysis of Hegel's central political work, the Philosophy of Right. Although Hegel did not support democratic political ends and wrote in a historical and cultural context far removed from the current liberal-democratic scene, Cortella maintains that the Hegelian theory of ethical life, with its emphasis on securing a framework conducive to human freedom, nevertheless offers a convincing response to the problem of the ethical uprootedness of contemporary democracy.

Ethics appears early in the life of a culture. It is not the creation of philosophers. Many philosophers today think that their job is to take the ethics of their society in hand, analyse it into parts, purge the bad ideas, and organize the good into a systematic moral theory. The philosophers' ethics that results is likely to be very different from the culture's raw ethics and, they think, being better, should replace it. But few of us, even among philosophers, settle real-life moral questions by consulting the Categorical Imperative or the Principle of Utility, largely because, if we do, we often do not trust the outcome or cannot even reliably enough decide what it is. By contrast, James Griffin explores the question what philosophers can reasonably expect to contribute to normative ethics or to the ethics of a culture. Griffin argues that moral philosophers must tailor their work to what ordinary humans' motivational capabilities, and he offers a new account of moral deliberation.

It is well known that Hegel conceives of history as the gradual process of rational thought and of forms of political life. But he is usually thought to place himself at the end of this process. This book argues that an essential part of Hegel's historical-political thinking has escaped the notice of its interpreters.

Thomas Jefferson and Edward Coles were men of similar backgrounds, yet they diverged on the central moral wrong of this country's history: the former remained a self-justified slave-holder, while the latter emancipated his slaves. What led these men of the same era to choose such different paths? They represent one of numerous examples in this work wherein examining the ways in which people who perform wrong and even evil actions attempt to justify those actions both to others and to themselves illuminates the mistakes that we ourselves make in moral reasoning. How do we justify moral wrongdoing to ourselves? Do we even notice when we are doing so? The Evil Within demonstrates that the study of moral philosophy can help us to identify and correct for such mistakes. In applying the tools of moral philosophy to case studies of Nazi death camp commandants, American slave-holders, and a psychopathic serial killer, Diane Jeske shows how we can become wiser moral deliberators. A series of case studies serve as extended real-life thought experiments of moral deliberation gone awry, and show us how four impediments to effective moral deliberation -- cultural norms and pressures, the complexity of the consequences of our actions, emotions, and self-deception -- can be identified and overcome by the study and application of moral philosophy. Jeske unsparingly examines the uncomfortable parellels between the moral deliberations of those who are transparently evil (e.g. psychopaths, Nazis), and our own moral justifications. The Evil Within ultimately argues for incorporating moral philosophy into moral education, so that its tools can become common currency in moral deliberation, discussion, and debate.

Contemporary philosophical pluralism recognizes the inevitability and legitimacy of multiple ethical perspectives and values, making it difficult to isolate the higher-order principles on which to base a theory of justice. Rising up to meet this challenge, Rainer Forst, a leading member of the Frankfurt School's newest generation of philosophers, conceives of an "autonomous" construction of justice founded on what he calls the basic moral right to justification. Forst begins by identifying this right from the perspective of moral philosophy. Then, through an innovative, detailed critical analysis, he ties together the central components of social and political justice--freedom, democracy, equality, and toleration--and joins them to the right to justification. The resulting theory treats "justificatory power" as the central question of justice, and by adopting this approach, Forst argues, we can discursively work out, or "construct," principles of justice, especially with respect to transnational justice and human rights issues. As he builds his theory, Forst engages with the work of Anglo-American philosophers such as John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Amartya Sen, and critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth. Straddling multiple subjects, from politics and law to social protest and philosophical conceptions of practical reason, Forst brilliantly gathers contesting claims around a single, elastic theory of justice.