In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for the affected individuals. In other words, utilitarian ideas encourage actions that lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different characterizations, the basic idea behind all of them is, in some sense, to maximize utility, which is often defined in terms of well-being or related concepts. For instance, Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, described utility as the capacity of actions or objects to produce benefits, such as pleasure, happiness, and good, or to prevent harm, such as pain and unhappiness, to those affected.
The Federalist Papers is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym "Publius" to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. The collection was commonly known as The Federalist until the name The Federalist Papers emerged in the twentieth century.
Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, rather than based on the consequences of the action. It is sometimes described as duty-, obligation-, or rule-based ethics. Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted to consequentialism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and pragmatic ethics. In this terminology, action is more important than the consequences.
William Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, war correspondent, short story writer, and essayist. He won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction with the novel Europe Central.
Francis Herbert Bradley was a British idealist philosopher. His most important work was Appearance and Reality (1893).
Hans Joachim Morgenthau was a German-American jurist and political scientist who was one of the major 20th-century figures in the study of international relations. Morgenthau was born in Coburg, Germany in 1904. Morgenthau's works belong to the tradition of realism in international relations theory; he is usually considered among the most influential realists of the post-World War II period. Morgenthau made landmark contributions to international relations theory and the study of international law. His Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, went through five editions during his lifetime and was widely adopted as a textbook in U.S. universities. While Morgenthau emphasized the centrality of power and "the national interest," the subtitle of Politics Among Nations—"the struggle for power and peace"—indicates his concern not only with the struggle for power but also with the ways in which it is limited by ethical and legal norms.
Edgar Dawn Ross "Ted" Honderich was a Canadian-born British philosopher, who was Grote Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic, University College London.
Bernard Gert was a moral philosopher known primarily for his work in normative ethics, as well as in medical ethics, especially pertaining to psychology.
The Believer is an American bimonthly magazine of interviews, essays, and reviews, founded by the writers Heidi Julavits, Vendela Vida, and Ed Park in 2003. The magazine is a five-time finalist for the National Magazine Award.
Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes is a series of historical novels by American writer William T. Vollmann about the conflicts between the natives of North America and settlers, governments, and others. Each volume focuses on a different episode in North American history, with most also including digressions and chronological departures. The narrator is credited throughout as William the Blind. The series will comprise seven novels; five books have been published as of 2022.
Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern is an American literary journal, founded in 1998, typically containing short stories, reportage, and illustrations. Some issues also include poetry, comic strips, and novellas. The Quarterly Concern is published by McSweeney's based in San Francisco and it has been edited by Dave Eggers. The journal is notable in that it has no fixed format, and changes its publishing style from issue to issue, unlike more conventional journals and magazines.
Moral disengagement is a meaning from developmental psychology, educational psychology and social psychology for the process of convincing the self that ethical standards do not apply to oneself in a particular context. This is done by separating moral reactions from inhumane conduct and disabling the mechanism of self-condemnation. Thus, moral disengagement involves a process of cognitive re-construing or re-framing of destructive behavior as being morally acceptable without changing the behavior or the moral standards.
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book The Devil's Dictionary was named one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. His story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" has been described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature", and his book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians was named by the Grolier Club one of the 100 most influential American books printed before 1900.
The bibliography of George Orwell includes journalism, essays, novels, and non-fiction books written by the British writer Eric Blair (1903–1950), either under his own name or, more usually, under his pen name George Orwell. Orwell was a prolific writer on topics related to contemporary English society and literary criticism, who has been declared "perhaps the 20th century's best chronicler of English culture." His non-fiction cultural and political criticism constitutes the majority of his work, but Orwell also wrote in several genres of fictional literature.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2007 is a non-fiction book published by Columbia University Press, and edited by the American Society of Magazine Editors. It features recognized high-quality journalism pieces from the previous year. The book includes an account by journalist William Langewiesche of Vanity Fair about a controversial United States military operation in Iraq, an investigative journalism article for Rolling Stone by Janet Reitman, a piece published in Esquire by C.J. Chivers about the Beslan school hostage crisis, and an article by Christopher Hitchens about survivors of Agent Orange.
Comics journalism is a form of journalism that covers news or nonfiction events using the framework of comics, a combination of words and drawn images. Typically, sources are actual people featured in each story, and word balloons are actual quotes. The term "comics journalism" was coined by one of its most notable practitioners, Joe Sacco. Other terms for the practice include "graphic journalism," "comic strip journalism", "cartoon journalism", "cartoon reporting", "comics reportage", "journalistic comics", "sequential reportage," and "sketchbook reports".
Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World is a non-fiction compilation book about targeted killing edited by Claire Finkelstein, Jens David Ohlin, and Andrew Altman. It was published by Oxford University Press in 2012. The book grew out of contributions by the authors to a conference in April 2011 at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Targeted Killings features eighteen essays in five sections arranged by topic. The work argues that after the 11 September attacks by Al-Qaeda in 2001, the United States and other countries began to see the tactic of targeted killing differently. The practice of targeted killing had previously been accepted in situations of self-defence in military settings; after 11 September 2001 it was used to kill non-combatants and those not directly involved in a particular armed force.
Gilbert King is an American writer and photographer, known best as the author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America (2012), which won the Pulitzer Prize. He is also the writer, producer, and co-host of Bone Valley, the award-winning narrative podcast based on the Leo Schofield case, and released in 2022 by Lava For Good. King's previous book was The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South (2008) and his most recent is Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found (2018).
Crises of the Republic is an anthology of four essays by Hannah Arendt, dealing with contemporary American politics and the crises it faced in the 1960s and 1970s, published in 1972.
