Rights, Restitution, and Risk: Essays in Moral Theory

by Judith Jarvis Thomson

Book Overview

Moral theory should be simple: the moral theorist attends to ordinary human action to explain what makes some acts right and others wrong, and we need no microscope to observe a human act. Yet no moral theory that is simple captures all of the morally relevant facts.

In a set of vivid examples, stories, and cases Judith Thomson shows just how wide an array of moral considerations bears on all but the simplest of problems. She is a...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674769813
• ISBN13: 9780674769816
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 282 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

A book about Moral Theory

Thomson's book is a compilation of essays about moral theory. Although the latest essay was written fifteen years ago, all of them deal with issues thet will never turn old fashioned. Amog the thirteen essays that compose this book there are three which I loved the most. The first of them is one that speaks about rights and compensation. In this essay Thomson tries to explain why should a right-holder must be compensated when his right is violated. The essay which I rank second is one which title is "Self-Defense and rightys", which deals with the well known problem about killing or harming someone acting in self-defense. Finally I really liked "Imposing Risks", where Thomson explains when it's legal to impose a risk over another person. I must say that all, the thirteen essays are great. I highly recomend the book.