Splitting the Difference: Compromise and Integrity in Ethics and Politics - Hardcover

Benjamin, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0700604146 ISBN 13: 9780700604142

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 1990

Synopsis

Politics is often characterized as the "art of compromise" - the implication being that compromise is desirable and that insight, imagination, discipline, and skill are all necessary for a compromise. Compromise in ethics, however, is quite another matter: there, it is usually regarded as a sign of weakness or lack of integrity. From Socrates and Sir Thomas More to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., we honour these men and women not only for the nature of their convictions but also for their unwavering refusal to compromise. Does this point to an important difference between politics and ethics? Martin Benjamin here explores the notion of compromise and its connection with integrity in ethics and politics. With examples, from Tolstoy to Ralph Nader, and from a variety of medical and bioethical cases, Benjamin presents an examination of the interplay between compromise and integrity. In the process, he tackles tough questions - the relationship between practical and theoretical ethics, what compromise means for ethical theory, the role of judgement in compromise, and whether it is possible to compromise without being compromised. In the final chapter Benjamin explores the possibility of political compromise in a matter of great ethical significance abortion.

About this title

Review

"Bold and exciting. . . .This is by far the best book dealing with compromise. It reads beautifully and opens up all sorts of important new approaches for the applied ethicist. . . . It will be well-received and much discussed."--Mike W. Martin, author of Self-Deception and Morality and coauthor of Ethics in Engineering

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0700604146
• ISBN 13: 9780700604142
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208