The Ethical Life Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems

by Shafer-Landau, Russ

• ISBN13: 9780199997275
• ISBN10: 0199997276
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-06-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Brief yet thorough and affordably priced, The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems, Third Edition, is ideal for courses in introductory ethics and contemporary moral problems. Featuring forty readings divided into four parts--The Good Life, Normative Ethics, Metaethics, and Moral Problems--it introduces students to ethical theory and a wide range of moral issues. The essays include selections from such historically influential philosophers as Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Mill alongside work by contemporary philosophers like Philippa Foot, Robert Nozick, Peter Singer, and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Detailed reading introductions provide helpful contextual information. The text is supplemented by an online Instructor's Manual and Computerized Test Bank and a Companion Website with student self-quizzes and additional resources.

Designed as a companion reader to Russ Shafer-Landau's textbook, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Third Edition, this volume is also comprehensive enough to be used on its own.

Author Biography

Russ Shafer-Landau is Chair and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of several books including The Fundamentals of Ethics, Third Edition (OUP, 2014), Reason and Responsibility, Fifteenth Edition (2013), and Ethical Theory: An Anthology, Second Edition (2012). He is also the editor of Oxford Studies in Metaethics.

Table of Contents

*=New to this Edition
Preface
A Note on the Companion Volume
INTRODUCTION
PART I. THE GOOD LIFE
1. Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus
2. John Stuart Mill, Hedonism
3. Robert Nozick, The Experience Machine
* 4. Chris Heathwood, Faring Well and Getting What You Want
5. Jean Kazez, Necessities
PART II. NORMATIVE ETHICS: Theories of Right Conduct
6. Plato, Euthyphro
7. Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness
8. J.J.C. Smart, Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism
9. Immanuel Kant, The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative
10. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
11. W.D. Ross, What Makes Right Acts Right?
12. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
13. Hilde Lindemann, What Is Feminist Ethics?
PART III. METAETHICS: The Status of Morality
14. David Hume, Moral Distinctions Not Derived from Reason
15. A.J. Ayer A Critique of Ethics
16. J.L. Mackie, The Subjectivity of Values
17. Harry Gensler, Cultural Relativism
* 18. David Enoch, Why I Am an Objectivist about Ethics (And Why You Are, Too)
PART IV. MORAL PROBLEMS
19. John Corvino, Why Shouldn't Tommy and Jimmy Have Sex? A Defense of Homosexuality
* Poverty and Hunger
20. Peter Singer, The Singer Solution to World Poverty
* 21. Jan Narveson, Feeding the Hungry
Euthanasia and A Modest Proposal
22. James Rachels, The Morality of Euthanasia
23. John Harris, The Survival Lottery
Terrorism and Torture
24. Michael Walzer, Terrorism: A Critique of Excuses
25. Alan Dershowitz, Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist be Tortured?
The Moral Status of Animals
26. Alastair Norcross, Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases
* 27. R.G. Frey, Moral Standing, The Value of Lives, and Speciesism
The Environment
28. Paul Taylor, The Ethics of Respect for Nature
29. Thomas Hill, Jr., Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments
Abortion
30. Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion
31. Don Marquism Why Abortion Is Immoral
32. Philippa Foot, Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect
The Limits of the Law
33. Igor Primoratz, Justifying Legal Punishment
34. Stephen Nathanson, An Eye for an Eye?
35. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail
36. Michael Huemer, America's Unjust Drug War
* Enhancing Human Beings
* 37. Michael Sandel, The Case against Perfection
* 38. Julian Savulescu, Genetic Interventions and the Ethics of Enhancement of Human Beings
* Affirmative Action
* 39. Louis Pojman, The Case against Affirmative Action
* 40. Daniel Hausman, Affirmative Action: Bad Arguments and Some Good Ones