"I sometimes like to daydream that if we were all somehow simultaneously outed as lechers and perverts and sentimental slobs, it might be, after the initial shock of disillusionment, liberating. It might be a relief to quit maintaining this rigid pose of normalcy and own up to the outlaws and monsters we are"--

While the philosophy of punishment is dominated by utilitarian and "mixed" theories, this study, written in the analytic tradition but also drawing on the views of Hegel, argues for a purely retributive view: all the main questions facing a theory of punishment are answered in terms of justice and desert, without any concessions to social expediency.

Alice McDermott—winner of the National Book Award, American Book Award, and Whiting Award, and three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—recently published her eighth novel, The Ninth Hour, to great critical and popular acclaim. Her previous books, including Charming Billy, At Weddings and Wakes, and That Night, have been lauded as crowning achievements of Irish American fiction. An Irish American Catholic born and raised in New York, McDermott uses multiple identities and a distinctive, nonchronological narrative style to create an unmistakable trademark. She currently serves as the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. Understanding Alice McDermott begins with a brief biography and transitions into a linear inquiry of McDermott's published works. In addition to interrogating her recurring motifs of memory and heritage, Margaret Hallissy tracks various themes that appear throughout the novels—religion, generational trauma, geography, family, motherhood, and displacement—topics that intertwine and inform the mentality of McDermott's characters. This volume deftly leads the reader through each of McDermott's novels, seeking connections and facilitating conversations among her earliest and most recent works. Hallissy demonstrates a deep critical understanding of intersections in McDermott's canon. Her characters in some ways are beleaguered by society's perception of them—uneducated, lower-middle-class immigrants or children of immigrants—but are also positively defined by their collective dream of a lost homeland and the shared hardship of motherhood. By tracing the shifting themes and motifs through eight novels, uncollected short stories, and essays published during McDermott's fruitful career, Understanding Alice McDermott provides a window into the decades-long development of a contemporary master.

In this book, Broad expounds and criticises five typical theories of ethics, viz. those of Spinoza, Butler, Hume, Kant and Sidgwick. This edition first published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

How leaders can take the moral risks necessary to create “masterpieces”—admirable, distinctive, and high-achieving businesses that create meaningful lives for customers, employees, and themselves. In Leadership as Masterpiece Creation, Charles Spinosa, Matthew Hancocks, and Haridimos Tsoukas show how the humanities can help leaders create profitable, masterpiece organizations. Such organizations, they assert, are ones that possess the emotional and moral sensibilities of an artist, the wisdom of a statesperson, and the technical know-how of commerce. The authors draw on the works of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bernard Williams, Shakespeare, and Machiavelli to conceptualize moral risk-taking, and then on the actions of Churchill, Madam C. J. Walker, Anita Roddick, Jeff Bezos, and others to show how the humanities can help create admirable businesses today. As management consultants and educators steeped in the humanities themselves, the authors discuss their experiences helping business leaders achieve successful masterpieces that bring good lives to many. After describing our contemporary business environment and examples of leaders who have created masterpiece organizations, the book turns to the basic skills of masterpiece creation: managing moods, building trust, listening for difference, and speaking truth to power. Then come the senior skills: moral risk-taking and creating a masterpiece organizational culture, strategy, and leadership style. Last, the authors explain why their leaders build an economy of gratitude. A culturally ambitious and refreshing read, Leadership as Masterpiece Creation is an invaluable volume for leaders of every stripe who wish to act daily with moral imagination.

"Do I think that Objectivism will be the philosophy of the future? I would say yes, but "-Ayn Rand to Playboy Magazine, 1964. "My views will probably be the norm in the future, but not right now."-Ayn Rand to Johnny Carson, 1967. Will they? The Age of Rand describes what Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism, will mean in practice-for good and ill. Rand expressed her controversial ideas in her best-selling novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Every year, more commentators debate those ideas, often heatedly. Frederick Cookinham asks questions no author has asked before: Would Objectivists destroy the environment in favor of rampant development? Why will Objectivist civilization be built on the oceans and in space? Is Objectivism a "Nietzschean Superman" philosophy? Ayn Rand often said, "Check your premises, and watch your implications!" Explore, in The Age of Rand, the astounding implications of this fast-growing and provocative new system of ideas. Some philosophy will dominate this new century-be prepared if it turns out to be Ayn Rand's. "Frederick Cookinham has written something of great worth to thousands who have been affected by Rand's work."-Andrea Millen Rich, Laissez Faire Books.

"Punishment," writes J. E. McTaggart, " is pain and to inflict pain on any person obviously [requires] justification." But if the need to justify punishment is obvious, the manner of doing so is not. Philosophers have developed an array of diverse, often conflicting arguments to justify punitive institutions. Gertrude Ezorsky introduces this source book of significant historical and contemporary philosophical writings on problems of punishment with her own article, "The Ethics of Punishment." She brings together systematically the important papers and relevant studies from psychology, law, and literature, and organizes them under five subtopics: concepts of punishment, the justification of punishment, strict liability, the death penalty, and alternatives to punishment. Under these general headings forty-two papers are presented to give philosophical perspectives on punishment. Included are many (e.g., John Stuart Mill's defense of capital punishment) not generally available. This book brings together in a single volume the views of such diverse writers as Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Samuel Butler, Karl Marx, and Lady Barbara Wooten. Others are J. Andenaes, K. G. Armstrong, John Austin, Kurt Baier, Jeremy Bentham, F. H. Bradley, Richard Brandt, Clarence Darrow, A. C. Ewing, Joel Feinberg, "The Hon. Mr. Gilpin," H. L. A. Hart, G. W. F. Hegel, Thomas Hobbs, Immanuel Kant, J. D. Mabbott, H. J. McCloskey, J. E. McTaggart, R. Martinson, G. E. Moore, Herbert Morris, Anthony Quinton, D. Daiches Raphael, H. Rashdall, John Rawls, W. D. Ross, Royal Commission on Capital Punishment Report 1949–53, George Bernard Shaw, T. L. S. Sprigge, and R. Wasserstrom.