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

Benjamin, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0700604553 ISBN 13: 9780700604555

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 1990

Synopsis

"Like fire and secrecy," writes Martin Benjamin, "compromise is both indispensable and dangerous to civilized life." Using wide-ranging examples drawn from current debates--including a variety of important medical and bioethical cases--he explores the surprisingly rich and complex notion of compromise and integrity in ethics and politics. He tackles tough questions--how practical and theoretical ethics are related, what compromise means for ethical theory, how compromise is a matter of judgment, and whether it is possible to compromise without being compromised. In the final chapter he 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

"This book is worth careful inspection by anyone interested in reading a lucid exposition of the problem of moral compromise in political life."--Journal of Politics

"Benjamin rehabilitates the concept of compromise as an admirable and indeed essential human enterprise and argues eloquently that it can also be applied successfully to the apparently intractable ethical issues which confront our body politic."--Ethics

"A good start on an important and neglected topic in practical ethics."--Choice

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0700604553
• ISBN 13: 9780700604555
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208