Promises and Agreements: Philosophical Essays

Hanoch Sheinman

Research output: Book/ReportBookpeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

Promises are routinely treated as a useful philosophical laboratory for testing moral, volitional, and social phenomena. Recently, they have also come to be treated as a philosophical topic in their own right. This book comprises fifteen chapters to the philosophical discussion of promises and agreements, and a context-providing introduction. Some of the chapters emphasize what's special or distinct about promises; others simply treat promises as a useful example of a general phenomenon they wish to illuminate. Most of the chapters focus on promises, but others discuss (or also discuss) contracts, conventions, and agreements. Most of the chapters focus on promises to another; but one chapter focuses on promises to oneself. Several chapters explore some broadly consequentialist perspective. Most chapters focus on perfectly good promises, but some chapters focus on rather problematic promises. Most of the chapters are largely ahistorical, but others are historically informed. The final section of the introduction (Chapter 1) gives an overview of the collection.

Original languageEnglish
PublisherOxford University Press
Number of pages432
ISBN (Electronic)9780199893836
ISBN (Print)9780195377958
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 May 2011
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Oxford University Press, 2014.

Keywords

  • Agreement
  • Autonomy
  • Consequentialism
  • Contract
  • Convention
  • Deontology
  • Hume
  • Joint action
  • Obligation
  • Practice
  • Promise
  • Rawls
  • Scanlon
  • Second-person Standpoint
  • Sidgwick
  • Speech-act
  • Trust
  • Value

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