The Ethics of Place

Jeff Malpas is one of the world''s leading thinkers on the philosophy of space and place. The Ethics of Place is a major examination of the ethical and political dimensions of place, hitherto neglected in much of the literature.

Place is regarded by many theorists with suspicion and it is often associated with conservative and reactionary politics, in contrast to a cosmopolitan ethics more aligned with universal values. However, place occupies a crucial position in forms of thought and movements such as communitarianism, , as well as playing an inescapable role in shaping human experience, identity and belonging.

Jeff Malpas considers these questions and more. Rather than reject or deny place, he argues that we need to reassess place, and explicitly to reconsider the ethics and politics that may be proper to it. He examines the following topics:

• the rhetoric that often underpins negative assessments of place;
• the necessity of place in human experience;
• the relation between place and community
• a conception of the political that can only be understood topographically, and that is itself the proper basis for notions of political community.

While philosophical in orientation, The Ethics of Place draws on a range of disciplines as well as elements from both the analytic and continental philosophical traditions, notably Donal Davidson and Martin Heidegger.