Routledge Focus on Philosophy
About the Book Series
Routledge Focus on Philosophy is an exciting and innovative new series, capturing and disseminating some of the best and most exciting new research in philosophy in short book form. Peer reviewed and at a maximum of fifty thousand words shorter than the typical research monograph, Routledge Focus on Philosophy titles are available in both ebook and print on demand format. Tackling big topics in a digestible format the series opens up important philosophical research for a wider audience, and as such is invaluable reading for the scholar, researcher and student seeking to keep their finger on the pulse of the discipline. The series also reflects the growing interdisciplinarity within philosophy and will be of interest to those in related disciplines across the humanities and social sciences.
Cultural Appropriation: Wrongs and Rights
1st Edition
By Aurélia Bardon, Jennifer M. Page
April 22, 2025
From the fashion label Dior being accused of cultural appropriation after using American Indian imagery in an ad campaign for its “Sauvage” fragrance, to the backlash against Kendall Jenner’s afro-esque hairstyle in Vogue, debates about cultural appropriation have reached a fever pitch. In this ...
Sexual Orientation and Identity: A Philosophical Analysis
1st Edition
By Matthew Andler
March 28, 2025
Sexual orientation and how we might understand it is a topic that arouses significant controversy. Is sexual orientation a natural or social phenomenon? Are categories such as 'queer' and 'straight' essential to the human condition or dependent on contingent cultural practices? While such questions...
State Secrecy and Democracy: A Philosophical Inquiry
1st Edition
By Dorota Mokrosinska
January 30, 2025
In the wake of controversial disclosures of classified government information by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, questions about the democratic status of secret uses of political power are rarely far from the headlines. Despite an increase in initiatives aimed at enhancing government transparency – ...
Ethical Health: Managing Our Moral Impulses
1st Edition
By Joel Marks
January 23, 2025
This book argues that moralism is a troublesome emotion of the sort one might seek help with from a psychotherapist. Its focus is on how to disabuse ourselves of the illusion that our values are objective, as well as how to manage the manifestations of its residual presence. This thesis may seem ...
Moral Blackmail: Coercion, Responsibility, and Global Justice
1st Edition
By Ben Colburn
October 17, 2024
Moral Blackmail: Coercion, Responsibility, and Global Justice identifies a novel kind of forced action, yet one that is relatively neglected in ethics and moral philosophy. Moral blackmail occurs when someone is forced to do something because someone else has made all its alternatives morally ...
Aristotle on Natural Simultaneity of Relatives in the Categories
1st Edition
By António Pedro Mesquita
October 09, 2024
This book addresses the issue of natural simultaneity of relatives, discussed by Aristotle in Categories 7, 7b15– 8a12. Natural simultaneity is a form of symmetrical ontological dependence that holds between items that are not causally linked. In this section of the Categories, Aristotle introduces...
Moralistics and Psychomoralistics: A Unified Cognitive Science of Moral Intuition
1st Edition
By Graham Wood
October 09, 2024
This book brings together three distinct research programmes in moral psychology – Moral Foundations Theory, Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange, and the Linguistic Analogy in Moral Psychology – and shows that they can be combined to create a unified cognitive science of moral intuition. The ...
Idealism after Existentialism: Encounters in Philosophy of Religion
1st Edition
By N. N. Trakakis
August 26, 2024
A century ago the dominant philosophical outlook was not some form of materialism or naturalism, but idealism. However, this way of thinking about reality fell out of favour in the Anglo-American analytic tradition as well as the Continental schools of the twentieth century. The aim of this book is...
Moral Choices for Our Future Selves: An Empirical Theory of Prudential Perception and a Moral Theory of Prudence
1st Edition
By Eleonora Viganò
August 26, 2024
This book investigates the relationship between our present and future selves. It focuses specifically on diachronic self-regarding decisions: choices involving our earlier and later selves, in which the earlier self makes a decision for the later self. The author connects the scientific ...
The Virtue of Playfulness: Why Happy People Are Playful
1st Edition
By boomer trujillo
April 29, 2024
This book argues that in order for people to live well, they must develop a virtue of playfulness. Inspired by Aristotle, the book draws on work from philosophy, classics, history, biology, psychology, and media studies to understand the place of play and playfulness in a good life. Many ...
Are Mental Disorders Brain Disorders?
1st Edition
By Anneli Jefferson
January 29, 2024
The question of whether mental disorders are disorders of the brain has led to a long-running and controversial dispute within psychiatry, psychology and philosophy of mind and psychology. While recent work in neuroscience frequently tries to identify underlying brain dysfunction in mental ...
The Ethics of Undercover Policing
1st Edition
By Christopher Nathan
September 25, 2023
Despite the media controversies surrounding high-profile cases of undercover policing, it is not always clear what ethical issues are at stake. Can undercover policing be justified? What are the ethical issues surrounding concealment and infiltration? What larger questions does undercover policing ...