Ethics History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues

Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues, Seventh Edition, features fifty-nine selections organized into three parts, providing instructors with great flexibility in designing and teaching a variety of courses in moral philosophy. Spanning 2,500 years of ethical theory, the first part, Historical Sources, ranges from Plato to Nietzsche. The second part, Modern Ethical Theory, includes many of the most important essays of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The third part, Contemporary Moral Problems, presents the current debates over such issues as abortion, social justice, environmentalism, affirmative action, and sexual harassment. Nearly forty percent of the modern readings are authored by women. The book is enhanced by part introductions, selection introductions, and study questions. The seventh edition includes twelve new essays.

Steven M. Cahn is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at The City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author or editor of more than sixty books. He is the editor of Exploring Ethics, Fifth Edition (OUP, 2019) and The World of Philosophy, Second Edition (OUP, 2018).

Peter Markie is Curators' Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He is the author of Descartes's Gambit (1988) and the coauthor of Introducing Ethics (OUP, 2014).

*=New to this Edition
Preface
Introduction
PART I: HISTORICAL SOURCES
Introduction, Alasdair MacIntyre
1. Plato
Euthyphro
Defence of Socrates
Crito
Phaedo (115b-118)
Republic (selections)
2. Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics (selections)
3. Epicurus
Letter to Menoeceus
Leading Doctrines
4. Cicero
On Duties (selections)
5. Epictetus
Enchiridion
6. Augustine
Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love (selections)
7. Thomas Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles (selections)
8. Thomas Hobbes
Leviathan (selections)
9. Joseph Butler
Fifteen Sermons (Sermons I, II, III, *IX, XI, XII)
10. David Hume
A Treatise of Human Nature (selections)
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (selections)
11. Immanuel Kant
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
12. Jeremy Bentham
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (selections)
13. John Stuart Mill
Utilitarianism
* 14. Henry Sidgwick
The Methods of Ethics (selections)
15. Friedrich Nietzsche
On the Genealogy of Morals (selections)
PART II: MODERN ETHICAL THEORY
Introduction, James Rachels
16. G.E. Moore
Principia Ethics (selections)
17. H.A. Prichard
Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?
18. A. J. Ayer
Language, Truth, and Logic (selections)
19. C. L. Stevenson
The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms
20. John Dewey
Theory of Valuation
21. R. M. Hare
Freedom and Reason (selections)
22. J. J. C. Smart
Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism
23. Bernard Williams
A Critique of Utilitarianism
24. W. D. Ross
The Right and the Good (selections)
25. John Rawls
A Theory of Justice (selections)
26. David Gauthier
Why Contractarianism?
* 27. T. M. Scanlon
What We Owe to Each Other (selections)
28. Barbara Herman
On the Value of Action
29. Philippa Foot
Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives
30. Christine Korsgaard
Skepticism about Practical Reason
31. Thomas Nagel
Moral Luck
32. Susan Wolf
Moral Saints
33. Jean-Paul Sartre
Existentialism Is a Humanism
34. G. E. M. Anscombe
Modern Moral Philosophy
35. Julia Annas
Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing
* 36. Noma Arpaly
Moral Worth
37. Virginia Held
Feminist Transformations of Moral Theory
38. Gilbert Harman
The Nature of Morality (selections)
39. J.L. Mackie
Inventing Right and Wrong (selections)
40. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Moral Intuitionism Meets Empirical Psychology
41. Mary Midgley
Trying Out One's New Sword
42. James Rachels
Egoism and Moral Skepticism
PART III: CONTEMPORARY MORAL PROBLEMS
Introduction, Peter Singer
43. Judith Jarvis Thomas
A Defense of Abortion
44. Don Marquis
An Argument That Abortion Is Wrong
45. James Rachels
Active and Passive Euthanasia
46. Philippa Foot
Killing and Letting Die
47. Peter Singer
Famine, Affluence, and Morality
* 48. Travis Timmerman
A Reply to Singer
* 49. Tom Regan
We Are What We Eat
* 50. Henry Shue
Global Environment and International Inequality
* 51. Karen Hanson
Facing Facts and Responsibilities
* 52. Laurence Thomas
What Good Am I?
* 53. Celia Wolf-Devine
Proportional Representation
* 54. N. Ann Davis
Sexual Harassment in the University
* 55. Margaret Crouch
Sexual Harassment in Public Places
56. Judith Jarvis Thomson
The Trolley Problem
57. Judith Jarvis Thomson
Turning the Trolley
58. Thomas Nagel
Death
59. Richard Taylor
The Meaning of Life