Living Ethically, Acting Politically / Melissa A. Orlie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Orlie, Melissa A., author.

Series:

Contestations Series

Contestations

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethics.

Social ethics.

Political ethics.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 227 p. :) ill. ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

How can we conceive of freedom and responsibility when our power is limited and we are subject to the forces of society? Melissa A. Odie asks what it means to live responsibly amid historical harm and wrongdoing, in the wake of slavery and genocide, or in the face of severe resource asymmetries. By connecting resistance to evil with reflections on the nature of power and political action, Odie reveals the daily ways people commonly exercise power, inflict harm, and show themselves capable of actions that transform both selves and the world. Viewed in this context, truly ethical political action may appear miraculous but could happen at any time.Odie asks what it means to live freely when advantages are distributed disproportionately according to race, gender, class, culture, and religion. What do freedom and responsibility entail when, for example, creating a home for oneself implies social and economic commitments that render others homeless? To address these questions, Orlie links diverse intellectual concerns and constituencies in the social sciences and humanities, offering original interpretations of Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, and Thomas Hobbes. She compares their thinking to that of the seventeenth-century Quakers who found political possibilities in the powers they called "spirit" in the world and in themselves.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

I. The Contemporary Imagination of Power

1. Makings, Trespasses, and Ordinary Evil

2. Subject-Citizens and Corporeal Souls

3. Recovering Political Enthusiasm for Invisible Powers

II. A Genealogy of the Modern Subject-Citizen

4. The Politics of Conscience

5. Hobbes's America

III. Living Ethically, Acting Politically

6. Seeking the Limits of Our Selves

7. A Political Ethos of Conscience

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-218) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 25. Sep 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781501732065

1501732064

OCLC:

1132670749