Jane Addams's Evolutionary Theorizing: Constructing Democracy and Social Ethics [Hardcover]

InJane Addams’s Evolutionary Theorizing, Marilyn Fischer advances the bold and original claim that Addams’s reasoning in her first book,Democracy and Social Ethics, is thoroughly evolutionary. WhileDemocracy and Social Ethics, a foundational text of classical American pragmatism, is praised for advancing a sensitive and sophisticated method of ethical deliberation, Fischer is the first to explore its intellectual roots.
 
Examining essays Addams wrote in the 1890s and showing how they were revised forDemocracy and Social Ethics, Fischer draws from philosophy, history, literature, rhetoric, and more to uncover the array of social evolutionary thought Addams engaged with in her texts—from British socialist writings on the evolution of democracy to British and German anthropological accounts of the evolution of morality. By excavating Addams’s evolutionary reasoning and rhetorical strategies, Fischer reveals the depth, subtlety, and richness of Addams’s thought.

Marilyn Fischeris professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Dayton. She is the author ofOn AddamsandEthical Decision Making in Fund Raisingas well as coeditor ofJane Addams and the Practice of DemocracyandJane Addams’s Writings on Peace.
 

List of Illustrations
Introduction
1 An Evolving Democracy
2 An Evolutionary Method of Ethical Deliberation
3 From Feudalism to Association
4 The City’s Moral Geology
5 Educating Immigrants
6 Science and the Social Settlement
7 ConstructingDemocracy and Social Ethics
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

"An accessible and engaging account of social and moral problems—most of which are equally relevant today—as Addams saw them. . . . Fischer’s chief achievement is to show how important evolutionary science lS?