Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life Introductory Readings in Ethics

by Hoff Sommers, Christina; Sommers, Fred

• ISBN13: 9780495130062
• ISBN10: 0495130060
• Edition: 7th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-02-27
• Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing

Summary

VICE AND VIRTUE IN EVERYDAY LIFE has been a bestseller in college ethics for more than two decades because it is well-liked by both instructors and students. Instructors appreciate it for its philosophical breadth and seriousness. Students welcome the engaging topics and irresistible readings. VICE AND VIRTUE IN EVERYDAY LIFE provides students with a lively selection of classical and contemporary readings on pressing matters of personal and social morality. The text includes an overview of seminal ethical theories, as well as a unique set of stimulating articles on matters of social responsibility, personal integrity and individual virtue. While the readings consistently represent different points of view, the book maintains a strong sense of the importance of avoiding cruelty and practicing kindness in a well-lived life.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	xv
Good and Evil	1	(59)
From Cruelty to Goodness	4	(12)
Philip Hallie
The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn	16	(11)
Jonathan Bennett
The Evil That Men Think---And Do	27	(9)
Philip Hallie
Thirty-eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call Police	36	(3)
Martin Gansberg
The Moral Insight	39	(3)
Jostah Royce
Billy Budd	42	(9)
Herman Melville
Beyond Good and Evil	51	(9)
Friedrich Nietzsche
Moral Doctrines and Moral Theories	60	(74)
The Experience Machine	63	(3)
Robert Nozick
The Judeo-Christian Tradition	66	(13)
Morality Is Based on God's Commands	79	(4)
Robert C. Mortimer
Why Morality Does Not Depend on Religion	83	(8)
John Arthur
Of Benevolence	91	(4)
David Hume
Utilitarianism	95	(5)
John Stuart Mill
A Critique of Utilitarianism	100	(7)
Bernard Williams
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas	107	(6)
Ursula K. Le Guin
Good Will, Duty, and the Categorical Imperative	113	(10)
Immanuel Kant
The Holocaust and Moral Philosophy	123	(5)
Fred Sommers
A Critique of Kantianism	128	(6)
Richard Taylor
Is It All Relative?	134	(59)
Morality As Custom	136	(1)
Herodotus
A Defense of Moral Relativism	137	(7)
Ruth Benedict
A Defense of Cultural Relativism	144	(5)
William Graham Sumner
Cultural Relativism and Universal Rights	149	(5)
Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban
Uganda's Women: Children, Drudgery, and Pain	154	(4)
Jane Perlez
An Alternative to Moral Relativism	158	(6)
Lawrence Adam Lengbeyer
Who's to Judge?	164	(10)
Louis Pojman
The Objective Basis of Morality	174	(5)
Thomas Nagel
The Deep Beauty of the Golden Rule	179	(4)
R. M. Maclver
I Have a Dream	183	(4)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The United Nations Charter: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights	187	(6)
Virtue	193	(85)
Happiness and the Virtues	196	(12)
Aristotle
The Art of Living	208	(4)
Epictetus
Of the Morals of the Catholic Church	212	(4)
Saint Augustine
The World of Epictetus	216	(12)
James Stockdale
Virtue or Duty?	228	(4)
Bernard Mayo
Tradition and the Virtues	232	(10)
Alasdair MacIntyre
Filial Morality	242	(9)
Christina Hoff Sommers
The Ethics of Virtue	251	(15)
James Rachels
Of Justice and Beneficence	266	(7)
Adam Smith
The Origin of the Moral Sense	273	(5)
Charles Darwin
Vice	278	(32)
Vice	281	(3)
Plutarch
The Depths of Vice	284	(4)
Saint Augustine
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God	288	(3)
Jonathan Edwards
The Hypocrites	291	(4)
Dante Alighieri
Self-Deception	295	(3)
Samuel Johnson
Upon Self-Deceit	298	(5)
Joseph Butler
Jealousy, Envy, and Spite	303	(7)
Immanuel Kant
Morality and Self-Interest	310	(55)
The Ring of Gyges	312	(4)
Plato
Of the State of Men without Civil Society	316	(6)
Thomas Hobbes
Of Self-Love	322	(5)
David Hume
The Unselfishness Trap	327	(5)
Harry Browne
Egoism and Moral Skepticism	332	(10)
James Rachels
The Virtue of Selfishness	342	(3)
Ayn Rand
Egoism, Self-Interest, and Altruism	345	(4)
Louis Pojman
Why Not Be a Bad Person?	349	(10)
Colin McGinn
Why Act Morally?	359	(6)
Peter Singer
Morality and Social Policy	365	(98)
Famine, Affluence, and Morality	367	(8)
Peter Singer
World Hunger and Moral Obligation: The Case against Singer	375	(6)
John Arthur
``For Heaven's Sake, Please Stop the Aid!''	381	(5)
James Shikwati
An Almost Absolute Value in History	386	(6)
John T. Noonan, Jr.
On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion	392	(8)
Mary Anne Warren
A Defense of Abortion	400	(15)
Judith Jarvis Thomson
Why Abortion Is Immoral	415	(6)
Don Marquis
The Wisdom of Repugnance: The Case against Human Cloning	421	(14)
Leon Kass
Human Reproductive Cloning: A Look at the Arguments against It and a Rejection of Most of Them	435	(18)
Raanan Gillon
The Constitution and the Clone	453	(10)
Cass R. Sunstein
Duties to Animals and to Nature	463	(67)
On Duties to Animals	465	(2)
Immanuel Kant
A Moral Defense of Vegetarianism	467	(7)
James Rachels
Down on the Factory Farm	474	(9)
Peter Singer
An Animal's Place	483	(13)
Michael Pollan
The Moral Status of Animals	496	(5)
Roger Scruton
The Land Ethic	501	(8)
Aldo Leopold
Deep Ecology	509	(8)
Bill Devall
George Sessions
Is God in Trees?	517	(4)
Dennis Prager
The Case against Nature	521	(9)
Gregg Easterbrook
The Meaning of Life	530	(57)
Substance, Shadow, and Spirit	533	(3)
T'ao Ch'ien
The Bhagavad Gita	536	(6)
The Four Noble Truths	542	(4)
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
My Confession	546	(9)
Leo Tolstoy
A Free Man's Worship	555	(7)
Bertrand Russell
The Myth of Sisyphus	562	(4)
Albert Camus
The Meaning of Life	566	(4)
Thomas Nagel
Existentialism and Freedom	570	(7)
Jean-Paul Sartre
Absurd Self-Fulfillment	577	(4)
Joel Feinberg
The Human Search for Meaning	581	(6)
Victor Frankl
The Book of Job	587