David M Smith

Moral Geographies

Ethics in a World of Difference

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book explores the interface between geography, ethics, and morality. It considers questions that have haunted the past, are subjects of controversy in the present, and affect the future. Does distance diminish responsibility? Should we interfere with the lives of those we do not know? Is there a distinction between private and public space? Which values and morals, if any, are absolute, and which cultural, communal, or personal? And are universal rights consistent with respect for difference? David Smith shows how these questions play themselves out in politics, planning, development, social and personal relations, the exploitation of resources, and competition for territory. After introducing the essential elements of moral philosophy from Plato to postmodernism, he examines the moral significance of concepts of landscape, location and place, proximity, distance and community, space and territory, justice, and nature. He is concerned above all with the morality people practice, to see how this varies according to geographical context, and to assess the inevitability of its outcomes. His argument is seamlessly interwoven with everyday observation and vividly described case studies: the latter include genocide and rescue during the Holocaust, the conflicts over space between Israel and Palestine and within Israel itself, and the social tensions and aspirations in post-apartheid South Africa. The meaning, possibility, and limits of social justice lie at the heart of the book. That geographical context is vital to the understanding of moral practice and ethical theory is its central proposition.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Edinburgh University Press
• Seitenzahl: 272
• Erscheinungstermin: 3. Mai 2000
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 241mm x 163mm x 21mm
• Gewicht: 535g
• ISBN-13: 9780748612789
• ISBN-10: 0748612785
• Artikelnr.: 21046022

Autorenporträt

David M. Smith

Inhaltsangabe

Preface 1) Introduction: Geography, Morality and Ethics Moral values in
geography Ethics, morality and moral philosophy The significance of
difference The approach 2) The Historical Geography of Morality and Ethics
The significance of context An outline historical geography Moral
differences and similarities 3) Landscape, Location and Place: Moral Order
Moral readings of landscape, location and place The moral geography of the
industrial city A moral geography of absence: the Lodz ghetto 4) Proximity:
Locality and Community Locality and partiality Community and morality An
ethic of care Limitations of locality, community and partiality A premodern
community: the shtetl 5) Distance: The Scope of Beneficence Reconstituting
community Extending the scope of care Combining the ethics of care and
justice The contextual experience of moral learning A moral geography of
genocide and rescue: the Holocaust 6) Space and Territory: Who Should be
Where Inclusion and exclusion Claims to territory: promised land?
Multiculturalism and minority rights Contesting local space: whose
Jerusalem? 7) Distribution: Territorial Social Justice Distribution and
difference The place of good fortune Human sameness, needs and rights
Social justice Universality and particularity 8) Development: Ethical
Perspectives Introducing development ethics Development after apartheid
Alternative development ethics: a new South Africa? 9) Nature:
Environmental Ethics Introducing environmental ethics Environmental equity
and justice Sustainable development Community, care and the future 10)
Conclusion: Towards Geographically Sensitive Ethics A world of difference
Context-sensitive moral knowledge Towards a better world On moral
motivation Bibliography Index