A Matter of Choice

Philip Hodgkiss is a sociologist by background who has drawn increasingly on moral philosophy and ethics to research the origins of the idea and ideal of dignity and the role of choice in social affairs. He was formerly Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Thought in the Department of Social Work and Social Care at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and is author of several publications on moral philosophy and social thought.

A Matter of Choice represents a substantive discussion of the concept of choice in human affairs, taken against the backdrop of ethics and religion. Drawing on a range of contributions, Hodgkiss demonstrates in this study that, though often not the primary issue under consideration, a concern with choice has featured continually in human thought from the Hellenistic world of the Stoics to the post-Kantian environment of modern philosophy. Moreover, he argues that the social and historical dimension of choice has been consistently underplayed, and that the role of choice in modern economic and political developments is underestimated at our peril. Through a critical account of the literature, Hodgkiss adeptly diagnoses the insufficiency of the current conception of the choice-making sovereign individual in the contemporary liberal-democratic capitalist context and outlines the implications of this philosophy for the choice-maker.

A considered examination of the enduring significance of choice-making in philosophy through the ages and its implications for the contemporary context.