Applied Ethics A Non-Consequentialist Approach

by Oderberg, David S.

• ISBN13: 9780631219057
• ISBN10: 0631219056
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-07
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Recent years have seen the revival of the application of moral philosophy to contemporary practical problems, and a corresponding explosion of books on the subject. Most of these books, however, defend approaches that are consequentialist or specifically utilitarian in nature. Applied Ethics, and its companion volume Moral Theory, provide a viable alternative to consequentialist orthodoxy. Applied Ethics focuses the central concepts of traditional morality - rights, justice, the good, virtue, and the fundamental value of human life - on a number of pressing contemporary problems, including abortion, euthanasia, animals, capital punishment, and war. Applied Ethics and Moral Theory, make an important contribution to contemporary ethical debates, which will be useful both to undergraduates and professional philosophers.

Author Biography

David S. Oderberg is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading. A graduate of the Universities of Melbourne and Oxford, he is author of The Metaphysics of Identity over Time (1993); co-editor, with Jacqueline A. Laing, of Human Lives: Critical Essays on Consequentialist Bioethics (1997), and editor of Form and Matter: Themes in Contemporary Metaphysics (Blackwell, 1999).

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	viii
Abortion	1	(47)
The Problem of Abortion Today	1	(2)
The Basic Argument and Some Responses	3	(3)
Sentience: A Bad Argument Against Abortion	6	(2)
A Return to the Basic Argument	8	(14)
Objection from brain activity	10	(2)
Objection from sorites paradoxes	12	(2)
Objection from begging the question	14	(1)
Objection from sperm and egg	14	(2)
Objection from fission and totipotency	16	(3)
Objection from cloning and parthenogenesis	19	(3)
A Feminist Argument for Abortion	22	(9)
The Foetus, the Person and the Person	31	(10)
Abortion, the Law and the Public Good -- A Concluding Note	41	(5)
`I personally disapprove of abortion but would not impose my opinion on other people'	41	(3)
`It is not the business of the law to interfere with such a difficult decision'	44	(1)
The `backstreet' objection	45	(1)
Conclusion	46	(2)
Euthanasia	48	(49)
Introduction	48	(2)
Varieties of Euthanasia	50	(4)
Voluntary Euthanasia and Autonomy	54	(6)
Non-Voluntary Euthanasia and `Quality of Life'	60	(11)
Active and Passive Euthanasia	71	(9)
Ordinary and Extraordinary Means	80	(5)
Euthanasia, Death and `Brain Death'	85	(9)
Euthanasia and Nazism	94	(3)
Animals	97	(47)
The Problem	97	(1)
The Conditions for Rights - What They Are Not	98	(23)
Consciousness	99	(6)
Beliefs and desires	105	(4)
Language	109	(5)
Self-consciousness	114	(3)
Action in pursuit of desires and goals	117	(4)
The Conditions for Rights -- What They Are	121	(15)
Knowledge of purpose	122	(5)
Free will	127	(9)
Two Dilemmas for the View that Animals Have Rights	136	(2)
So How Should We Treat Animals?	138	(6)
Capital Punishment	144	(38)
A Conflict?	144	(2)
Punishment -- General Principles	146	(10)
Capital Punishment -- The Argument	156	(6)
Objections	162	(16)
What if an innocent person is executed?	162	(2)
Capital punishment is irreversible	164	(1)
Capital punishment is not a deterrent	165	(3)
Capital punishment is just state-sanctioned murder	168	(1)
Capital punishment is cruel and inhuman	169	(1)
What about mercy and compassion?	169	(2)
Capital punishment fails to respect persons	171	(7)
Concluding Remarks on Hypocrisy	178	(4)
War	182	(46)
Some Questions	182	(3)
War, Pacifism and Self-Defence	185	(13)
Self-defence -- basic principles	191	(7)
Going to War	198	(17)
Basic principles of the just war	201	(4)
Just cause	205	(6)
Questions about the justice of the cause	211	(4)
Conduct During War	215	(9)
Globalism	224	(4)
Notes and Further Reading	228	(12)
Index	240