Overview
- Brings together prominent international experts to provide the first systematic investigation of practical necessity.
- Offers a multi-perspective analysis of this crucial concept in contemporary philosophical debates.
- Contributes to debates on practical identity, motivational structures, and moral agency.
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About this book
This collection of essays provides the first systematic investigation of practical necessity and offers novel perspectives on this intriguing phenomenon. While debates on necessity often take place in the realm of metaphysics, there is a form of necessity that is pertinent to practical philosophy. “Here I stand. I can do no other,” a phrase habitually attributed to Martin Luther, is often interpreted as revealing underlying normative reasons that exhibit a special kind of necessitating force, experienced as an inescapable constraint by the agent. However, one of the features that make this phenomenon so fascinating is that this constraint is often deciphered as stemming from a form of necessitation that articulates the agent’s autonomy or practical identity. Luther’s saying serves as a leitmotif for an exploration of different claims and challenges related to practical necessity. As the complex philosophical investigations are based on familiar, everyday experiences the book is accessible to any academic readership.
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Keywords
Table of contents (12 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Examples: The Necessity of Love and the Unforgivable
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Front Matter
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Normative Claims: Personal Practical Necessity and Practical Identities
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Front Matter
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Volitional and Psychological Challenges: Ambiguity, Psychopathy, and Shame
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Front Matter
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Concluding Evaluations
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Somogy Varga (PhD, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main) is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis. His primary areas of research are philosophy of psychiatry/mind, moral psychology and social philosophy. His publications include Authenticity as an Ethical Ideal (Routledge 2011) and Naturalism, Interpretation, and Mental Disorder (Oxford University Press 2015).
Katharina Bauer, Dr. phil., is a Feodor-Lynen Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation at Rijskuniversiteit Groningen. In 2016 she has completed her habilitation thesis about theories of practical necessity as a research scholar of the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)”. She is the author of Einander zu erkennen geben. Das Selbst zwischen Erkenntnis und Gabe (Alber 2012).
Corinna Mieth is Professor for Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Law at the Ruhr-University of Bochum (Germany). Her main areas of specialization are positiveduties, human rights and human dignity, global justice, world poverty, and moral dilemmas. She is the author of Positive Pflichten (Positive Duties). Über das Verhältnis von Hilfe und Gerechtigkeit in Bezug auf das Weltarmutsproblem (de Gruyter 2012).
Katharina Bauer, Dr. phil., is a Feodor-Lynen Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation at Rijskuniversiteit Groningen. In 2016 she has completed her habilitation thesis about theories of practical necessity as a research scholar of the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)”. She is the author of Einander zu erkennen geben. Das Selbst zwischen Erkenntnis und Gabe (Alber 2012).
Corinna Mieth is Professor for Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Law at the Ruhr-University of Bochum (Germany). Her main areas of specialization are positiveduties, human rights and human dignity, global justice, world poverty, and moral dilemmas. She is the author of Positive Pflichten (Positive Duties). Über das Verhältnis von Hilfe und Gerechtigkeit in Bezug auf das Weltarmutsproblem (de Gruyter 2012).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Dimensions of Practical Necessity
Book Subtitle: “Here I Stand. I Can Do No Other."
Editors: Katharina Bauer, Somogy Varga, Corinna Mieth
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52398-9
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-52397-2Published: 03 May 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-84897-6Published: 18 July 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-52398-9Published: 20 April 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 257
Topics: Moral Philosophy, Ethics, Religion and Psychology