Most Popular Books by Ted Honderich

Ted Honderich''s Punishment is the best-known book on the justifications put forward for state punishment. This enlarged and developed edition brings his writing to a new audience. With new chapters on determinism and responsibility, plus a new conclusion, the book also remains true to its original realism about almost all talk of retribution and proportionality. Honderich investigates all the commonsensical notions of why and when punishment is morally necessary, engaging with the language of public debate by politicians and other public figures. Honderich then puts forward his own argument that punishment is legitimate when it is in accord with the principle of humanity. Written in a clear, sharp style and seasoned with a dry wit, this is the most important work on the reasoning behind our penal systems. It is a pleasure to read for philosophers and non-philosophers alike. Ted Honderich is Grote Professor Emeritus at University College London and author of numerous books on philosophy, including After the Terror (Edinburgh University Press, 2002), How Free Are You? (Oxford University Press, 2001), Terrorism for Humanity (Pluto Press, 2003) and Conservatism (Pluto Press, 2005). He is also the editor of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy.

The most recalcitrant problem of philosophy, free will, laid out and taken beyond unsatisfactory standard solutions by Britain''s foremost working philosopher.Determinism comes in many forms, some confused, some inconsistent, some incomplete. Some philosophers maintain that determinism is incompatible with true freedom. And others, that determinism is no threat to our freedom. But are these philosophers really assigning an ''unfreedom'' to us and merely pretending that we are responsible for our choices and acts of love and violence?Ted Honderich argues that there are strong reasons to think both positions wrong. Developing from where his earlier work left off, he considers there is a new and more difficult problem of determinism. It too can lead to the thought that we are unfree but morally responsible. As he demonstrates, the hardest and deepest question in philosophy needs a really different answer.

Ted Honderich investigates the morality of the September 11th attacks and what terrorism tells us about ourselves and our obligations. Did we have a responsibility for what took place? Did we respond to it as we should have? What are we to do now? "After the Terror" inquires into the "natural fact" of morality and the worked-out moralities of philosophers. It reaches to the moral core of our lives. Honderich writes, "We can be held partly responsible for the 3,000 deaths at the twin towers and at the Pentagon. We are rightly to be held responsible along with the killers. We share the guilt. Those who condemn us have a reason to do so. Did we bring the killing at the twin towers on ourselves? Did we have it coming? Those offensive questions, and their offensive, but affirmative answer, do contain a truth."

What is it for you to be conscious? There is no agreement whatever in philosophy or science: it has remained a hard problem, a mystery. Is this partly or mainly owed to the existing theories not even having the same subject, not answering the same question? In Actual Consciousness, Ted Honderich sets out to supersede dualisms, objective physicalisms, abstract functionalism, externalisms, and other positions in the debate. He argues that the theory of Actualism, right or wrong, is unprecedented, in nine ways. (1) It begins from gathered data and proceeds to an adequate initial clarification of consciousness in the primary ordinary sense. This consciousness is summed up as something''s being actual. (2) Like basic science, Actualism proceeds from this metaphorical or figurative beginning to what is wholly literal and explicit—constructed answers to the questions of what is actual and what it is for it to be actual. (3) In so doing, the theory respects the differences of consciousness within perception, consciousness that is thinking in a generic sense, and consciousness that is generic wanting. (4) What is actual with your perceptual consciousness is a subjective physical world out there, very likely a room, differently real from the objective physical world, that other division of the physical world. (5) What it is for the myriad subjective physical worlds to be actual is for them to be subjectively physical, which is exhaustively characterized. (6) What is actual with cognitive and affective consciousness is affirmed or valued representations. The representations being actual, which is essential to their nature, is their being differently subjectively physical from the subjective physical worlds. (7) Actualism, naturally enough when you think of it, but unlike any other existing general theory of consciousness, is thus externalist with perceptual consciousness but internalist with respect to cognitive and affective consciousness. (8) It satisfies rigorous criteria got from examination of the failures of the existing theories. In particular, it explains the role of subjectivity in thinking about consciousness, including a special subjectivity that is individuality. (9) Philosophers and scientists have regularly said that thinking about consciousness requires just giving up the old stuff and starting again. Actualism does this. Science is served by this main line philosophy, which is concentration on the logic of ordinary intelligence—clarity, consistency and validity, completeness, generality.

This is a concise introduction to one of the central questions of philosophy - are we subject to determinism, or do we possess Free Will, and thus responsibility for our actions? The first part of the book, which in itself amounts to a complete philosophy of mind, considers the claims of the two theories and investigates whether either of them is clear, consistent, complete, or demonstrably true. The remaining chapters deal with the implications of determinism and its significance inour public and private actions. Honderich examines the doctrines of compatibilism, which argues that we are subject to causation but nevertheless free, and incompatibilism, which sees determinism and freedom as mutually exclusive. This debate has been one of philosophy''s main battlegrounds for centuries, with thinkers as distinguished as Kant and Hume in opposite camps.

No detailed description available for "On Consciousness".

The story of Ted Honderich, philosopher, a story of a perilous philosophical life, marked by critical examination, and a compelling personal life full of human drama. This is the story of Ted Honderich''s perilous progress from boyhood in Canada to the Grote Professorship of Mind and Logic at University College London, A. J. Ayer''s chair. It is compelling, candid and revealing about the beginning and the goal, and everything in between: early work as a journalist on The Toronto Star, travels with Elvis Presley, arrival in Britain, loves and friendships, academic rivalries and battles, marriages and affairs, self-interest and empathy. It sets out resolutely to explain how and why it all happened. It is as much a narrative of Ted Honderich''s philosophy. He makes hard problems real. Philosophy from consciousness and determinism to political violence and democracy comes into sharp focus. Along the way, questions keep coming up. Does the free marriage owe anything to the analytic philosophy? What are the costs of truth? Are the politics of England slowly making it an ever-better place? Is an action''s rightness independent of the mixture of motives out of which it came?

* The magnum opus of a distinguished philosopher Mind and Brain was originally published as the first two parts of a single-volume hardback edition. In it, Ted Honderich considers the exact nature of the relation between mental and neural events, how both sorts of events come about, and their relation to actions. The answers that Honderich gives constitute a new determinist philosophy of mind.

Ted Honderich is one of the world''s foremost philosophers of the Left. This is a revised edition of his classic text, Violence for Equality: Inquiries in Political Philosophy. It became a benchmark in political philosophy twenty years ago and came out in three editions. Now revised and updated, Terrorism for Humanity raises fundamental questions about the morality of terrorism or political violence -- questions that are cruelly inescapable in the light of recent events and the ''war on terror''. What is to be said for and against the terrorism that is directed to the goal of the Principle of Humanity -- the rescuing of people from lives of wretchedness? When is such terrorism right, if ever, and when is it wrong? Why is it wrong? In six lucid essays, Honderich challenges the presuppositions, prejudices and inconsistencies of liberal-democratic thinking. He takes hold of subjects with strong implications for liberation-terrorism, including Palestinian terrorism. He refuses to accept that the questions that arise are easily answered. Exploring the moral issues that lie at the heart of his subject, he reminds us that political philosophy should be an attempt to inquire with an open mind -- and that to open one''s mind is not necessarily to lose one''s convictions. This remarkable book will interest and challenge all teachers and students of philosophy and politics. It will capture anyone who wants actually to think about the morality of terrorism. Book jacket.

New edition of a classic philosophical text that critiques the conservative tradition in US and UK politics.

John Stuart Mill''s On liberty, and a question about liberalism -- Conservatism, its distinctions, and its rationale -- Trying to save Marx''s theory of history, by teleology, and failing -- The contract argument in a theory of justice -- The principle of humanity -- Consequentialism, moralities of concern, and selfishness -- Hierarchic democracy and the necessity of mass civil disobedience and non-co-operation -- After the terror : a book and further thoughts.

Philosopher Ted Honderich insightfully relates four shattering current events in this articulate, well-reasoned moral and political analysis. Exploring the war in Iraq, the controversy in Palestine, and the tragic events of 9-11 and London’s 7-7, Honderich elucidates the great questions of right and wrong in a conflict-ridden era.

Ted Honderich presents an intelligent inquiry into the highly controversial topic of terrorism, looking in turn at Palestine, 9-11, Iraq and 7-7.

Essays on Freedom of Action, first published in 1973, brings together original papers by contemporary British and American philosophers on questions which have long concerned philosophers and others: the question of whether persons are wholly a part of the natural world and their actions the necessary effects of causal processes, and the question of whether our actions are free, and such that we can be held responsible for them, even if they are the necessary effects of casual processes. This volume will be of interest not only to those who are primarily concerned with philosophy but also to students in those many other disciplines in which freedom and determinism arise as problems.

Violence for Equality, first published in 1989, questions the morality of political violence and challenges the presuppositions, inconsistencies and prejudices of liberal-democratic thinking. This book should be of interest to teachers and students of philosophy and politics.

Der angesehene kanadische Philosoph Ted Honderich zeigt mit diesem ethisch-politischen Traktat, was man als angewandte philosophische Ethik bezeichnen könnte. Der Anschlag vom 11. September 2001 wird zum Anlaß genommen, um vergessene ethische Grundfragen neu zu stellen.

In The Consequences of Determinism, originally Part Three of the single-volume hardback edition, Honderich poses the following question: if determinism is true, and free will an illusion, what are the consequences? Honderich maintains that both of the entrenched and traditional doctrines aboutthe consequences of determinism, Compatibilism and Incompatibilism, are provably false, and formulates a new answer to the question.