Freedom of speech

By Jones, Peter

Freedom of speech is one of the most widely accepted principles of modern political and social life. The three arguments most commonly offered in its defence are that ...

Privacy

By Olsen, Frances

The distinction between private and public is both central to much legal and political thought and subject to serious challenge on philosophical, practical and political grounds by critics ...

Journalism, ethics of

By Belsey, Andrew

It is sometimes suggested that ethical principles, even fundamental ones like nonmaleficence and beneficence, are totally out of place in journalism, and that it should be shaped solely ...

Information technology and ethics

By Nissenbaum, Helen

Information technology ethics is the study of the ethical issues arising out of the use and development of electronic technologies. Its goal is to identify and formulate answers ...

Pornography

By Mendus, Susan

There are three main questions about pornography. (1) How is pornography to be defined? Some definitions include the contention that it is morally wrong, while others define it ...

Pornography

There are three main questions about pornography. (1) How is pornography to be defined? Some definitions include the contention that it is morally wrong, while others define it ...

Chinese philosophy

By Hall, David L.; Ames, Roger T.

Any attempt to survey an intellectual tradition which encompasses more than four thousand years would be a daunting task even if it could be presumed that the reader ...

Education, philosophy of

By Curren, Randall R.

The philosophy of education is primarily concerned with the nature, aims and means of education, and also with the character and structure of educational theory, and its own ...

Cynics

By Branham, R. Bracht

Cynicism (originating in the mid-fourth century bc) was arguably the most original and influential branch of the Socratic tradition in antiquity, whether we consider its impact on ...

Toleration

By Horton, John

Toleration emerged as an important idea in the seventeenth century, receiving its fullest defence in John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). Initially developed in the context of ...

Shaftesbury, Third Earl of (Anthony Ashley Cooper) (1671–1713)

By McNaughton, David

Shaftesbury, whose influence on eighteenth-century thought was enormous, was the last great representative of the Platonic tradition in England. He argued that by natural reason we can see ...

Taylor, Harriet (1807–58)

By McCabe, Helen

Harriet Taylor (1807–58) was a British philosopher and political reformer, most famous (to posterity) for marrying John Stuart Mill. Her best-known single-authored work is Enfranchisement of Women ...

Liberalism, Russian

By Hamburg, G.M.

Unlike early English liberalism which stressed individual freedom from state control and from the ‘tyranny of the majority’, Russian liberalism generally emphasized the importance of legality in government, ...

Mill, John Stuart (1806–73)

By Skorupski, John

John Stuart Mill, Britain’s major philosopher of the nineteenth century, gave formulations of his country’s empiricist and liberal traditions of comparable importance to those of John Locke. He ...

Mill, John Stuart (1806–73)

John Stuart Mill, Britain’s major philosopher of the nineteenth century, gave formulations of his country’s empiricist and liberal traditions of comparable importance to those of John Locke. He ...

Political philosophy

By Miller, David

Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic ...

Technology and ethics

By Mitcham, Carl; Nissenbaum, Helen

Only within the modern period have philosophers made a direct and sustained study of ethics and technology. Their work follows two philosophical traditions, each marked by distinct styles: ...

Constant de Rebecque, Henri-Benjamin (1767–1830)

By Wood, Dennis

Benjamin Constant combined the activities of a religious historian, autobiographer and novelist with a career as a political theorist and politician. Constant’s intellectual outlook was shaped by French ...

Mill, John Stuart (1806–73)

John Stuart Mill, Britain’s major philosopher of the nineteenth century, gave formulations of his country’s empiricist and liberal traditions of comparable importance to those of John Locke. His ...

Herzen, Aleksandr Ivanovich (1812–70)

By Kelly, Aileen

Lauded by Nietzsche as ‘a man of every distinctive talent’ and admired by Lenin as the founder of the Russian revolutionary movement, Herzen eludes all neat categorizations. As ...

Dworkin, Ronald (1931–2013)

By Christodoulidis, Emilios A.

Ronald Dworkin’s early, highly controversial, thesis that there are right answers in hard cases in law, coupled with his attack on the idea that law is simply a ...

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century. His thought had a profound impact on later philosophers, social theorists and theologians, ...

Erotic art

By Levinson, Jerrold

Erotic art is art with a sexual content, which may be more or less overt. The presence of sexual content, however, is not sufficient for a work of ...

Freedom and liberty

By Feinberg, Joel

There are at least two basic ideas in the conceptual complex we call ‘freedom’; namely, rightful self-government (autonomy), and the overall ability to do, choose or achieve things, ...

Anaxarchus (c.380–c.330 BC)

By Brunschwig, Jacques

The Greek philosopher Anaxarchus of Abdera was a friend of Alexander the Great, teacher and friend of Pyrrho, and heroic victim of a tyrant. More a court philosopher ...