Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)
Harry J. Gensler
Language: English
Pages: 200
ISBN: 0415803888
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Harry Gensler’s Ethics introduces undergraduates to the main issues in contemporary moral philosophy. It also relates these issues to practical controversies, with special attention paid to racism, moral education, and abortion. It gives a practical method for thinking about moral issues, a method based largely on the golden rule.
Key Features:
• Serves as either the sole textbook for a lower-level introduction to ethics/moral philosophy course or a supplementary text for a more advanced undergraduate ethics course
• Provides clear, direct writing throughout, making each chapter easily accessible for an engaged undergraduate
• Offers a philosophically rigorous presentation of the golden rule
• Includes helpful study aids, including: bolded technical terms, boxes for key ideas, chapter summaries, suggested readings, and a glossary/index
Key additions to the Second Edition:
• A new chapter on virtue ethics, which deals with Aristotle, Plato, and related controversies
• A new chapter on natural law theory, which deals with Aquinas, double effect, sexual morality, and related controversies
• A significantly revised chapter on the golden rule, which is now much clearer on certain key points
• A significantly revised chapter on nonconsequentialism, which now has expanded coverage of human rights, libertarianism, and socialism, and uses the right to health care as a case example
• An expanded bibliography
• A new appendix that overviews key books students will want to pursue upon completing Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction, Second Edition
• A rewritten instructional program, EthiCola, which is now much easier to download and use and has (for students) revised exercises for each chapter and (for instructors) a score-processing program, class slides, and instructor’s manual. This can be found on the book’s companion website: http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/gensler.
Music and Ethical Responsibility
113f, 115 emotivism: “X is good” is an emotional exclamation (not a truth claim), and means “Hurrah for X!” 20, 46–55, 57, 78, 94, 145, 166, 174; see also moderate emotivism empirical statement: Statement that is testable by sense experience (and thus can in principle be shown by sense experience to be true or at least highly probable). 46f, 49–51, 67, 107, 155, 159 ends–means consistency: Keep your means in harmony with your ends. 66, 67, 77, 79, 93, 97f, 108, 147 entitlement view of just.
Almost universally accept “x+y = y+x.” By contrast, reflective, intelligent people who have studied ethics disagree widely about basic moral principles. In ethics, what seems self-evident to one person may seem absurd to another. Intuitionists themselves disagree about which moral principles are selfevident. (1) Some accept one big rule about duty. Of these, some prefer a rule like Moore’s, that we ought to do whatever maximizes good consequences for everyone. Others take egoism to be.
Worked, then “X is good” would be a genuine empirical statement; we could test its truth by testing whether X was socially approved. So this definition would make ethics a branch of sociology. Unfortunately, however, such definitions don’t work. “Good” in our language doesn’t mean “socially approved,” since it’s consistent to say that some socially approved things aren’t good. This point should be familiar if you know about Moore’s famous refutation of naturalism. So moral judgments aren’t.
Hard work and just agreements, is yours. If everyone has legitimately earned what they have, then the resulting distribution is just—regardless of how unequal it may be. No one has a right to take your possessions away from you, even if others have far less. Schemes (like a progressive income tax) that force a redistribution of wealth are wrong, because they violate your right to property. They steal from you in order to give to others. How much should doctors get paid? On Nozick’s approach, they.
Just to act in a certain way; it also involves acting for the right reasons and with the right feelings, as a person of virtue would act. If we speak honestly just because we fear getting caught in a lie, then we don’t adequately have the virtue of honesty. Let me sum up. For Aristotle, virtue is rational moderation. Socrates began Greek ethics by asking “What is virtue?” Aristotle’s answer (in Section 6 of Book II of his Nicomachean Ethics) goes: “Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned.