Philosophy of Love, Sex, and Marriage: An Introduction - Softcover

Halwani, Raja

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415993512 ISBN 13: 9780415993517

Publisher: Routledge, 2010

Synopsis

How is love different from lust or infatuation?  Do love and marriage really go together “like a horse and carriage”?  Does sex have any necessary connection to either?  And how important are love, sex, and marriage to a well-lived life? In this lively, lucid, and comprehensive textbook, Raja Halwani pursues the philosophical questions inherent in these three important aspects of human relationships, exploring the nature, uses, and ethics of romantic love, sexuality, and marriage. 

The book is structured in three parts:

• Love begins by examining how romantic love differs from other types of love, such as friendship and parental love. It asks which properties of love are essential, whether people have a choice in whom they love, and whether lovers have moral obligations to one another that differ from those they owe to others
• Sex demonstrates the difficulty in defining sex and the sexual, and examines what constitutes good and bad sex in terms of pleasure, 'naturalness', and moral permissibility.  It offers theoretical and applied ethical approaches to a wide range of sexual phenomena
• Marriage traces the history of the institution, and describes the various forms in which marriage exists and the reasons why people marry.  It also surveys accounts of why people should or should not marry, and introduces the main arguments for and against gay marriage.

Features include:

• suggestions for further reading
• online eResource site with dowloadable discussion questions
• a clear, jargon-free writing style.

About this title

Review:

'Raja Halwani tackles these important subjects with characteristic energy, incisiveness, and wit. Even where you disagree with him, you learn from him. This book deserves a wide audience.' – John Corvino, Wayne State University, USA

'Skillfully combines meticulous philosophical analysis of contemporary romantic and sexual mores with vivid, earthy examples of the problems and permutations of actually living them.' – Jane O'Grady, City University London, Times Higher Education

'A provocative and immensely helpful introduction to this area ... I recommend it.' – Christian Perring, Metapsychology Online Reviews

 

About the Author:

Raja Halwani is Professor of Philosophy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of Virtuous Liaisons: Care, Love, Sex, and Virtue Ethics, the editor of Sex and Ethics: Essays on Sexuality, Virtue, and the Good Life, and the co-author (with Tomis Kapitan) of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Philosophical Essays on Self-Determination, Terrorism, and the One-State Solution.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0415993512
• ISBN 13: 9780415993517
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 344