Description

In this important addition to the field of Jewish ethics, Goodman argues forcefully that the Jewish tradition has a significant contribution to make to the general discourse on ethical issues. After refuting the notion that "human rights" is a purely modern notion, Goodman traces the idea of such rights to its key biblical sources. He goes on to consider the works of medieval thinkers like Saadiah Goan and Moses Maimonides and then applies these and other foundational texts to such contemporary social and political issues as capital punishment, suicide, welfare, pornography, abortion, and nationalism.

Reviews

"Goodman is one of the leading contemporary Jewish philosophers....[he] is highly successful in his attempt to demonstrate how certain classical Jewish ideas and current philosophical thinking can be brought into productive dialogue with each other in such a way as to shed some much-needed light on a variety of pressing contemporary problems."--Choice

Product Details

224 pages; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-511834-6ISBN10: 0-19-511834-0

About the Author(s)