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Acknowledgments | |
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A Note on the Companion Volume | |
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A Note to Readers | |
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Introduction | |
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The Lay of the Land | |
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Ethical Starting Points | |
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Moral Reasoning | |
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The Role of Moral Theory | |
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Looking Ahead | |
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The Good Life | |
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Hedonism: Its Powerful Appeal | |
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Happiness and Intrinsic Value | |
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The Attractions of Hedonism | |
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There Are Many Models of a Good Life | |
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Personal Authority and Well-Being | |
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Misery Clearly Hampers a Good Life | |
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Happiness Clearly Improves It | |
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The Limits of Explanation | |
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Rules of the Good Life--and Their Exceptions | |
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Happiness Is What We Want for Our Loved Ones | |
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Is Happiness All That Matters? | |
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The Paradox of Hedonism | |
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Evil Pleasures | |
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The Two Worlds | |
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False Happiness | |
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The Importance of Autonomy | |
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Life's Trajectory | |
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Unhappiness as a Symptom of Harm | |
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Conclusion | |
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Getting What You Want | |
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A Variety of Good Lives | |
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Personal Authority | |
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Avoiding Objective Values | |
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Motivation | |
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Justifying the Pursuit of Self-Interest | |
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Knowledge of the Good | |
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Problems for the Desire Theory | |
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Getting What You Want May Not Be Necessary for Promoting Your Good | |
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Getting What You Want May Not Be Sufficient for Promoting Your Good | |
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Desires Based on False Beliefs | |
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Disinterested and Other-Regarding Desires | |
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Passing Fancies | |
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Disappointment | |
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Ignorance of Desire Satisfaction | |
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Impoverished Desires | |
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The Paradox of Self-Harm and Self-Sacrifice | |
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The Fallibility of Our Deepest Desires | |
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Conclusion | |
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Doing The Right Thing | |
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Morality and Religion | |
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Three Assumptions About Religion and Morality | |
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First Assumption: Religious Belief Is Needed for Moral Motivation | |
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Second Assumption: God Is the Creator of Morality | |
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Third Assumption: Religion Is an Essential Source of Moral Guidance | |
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Conclusion | |
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Natural Law | |
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The Theory and Its Attractions | |
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Two Conceptions of Human Nature | |
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Human Nature Is What Is Innately Human | |
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Human Nature Is What All Humans Have in Common | |
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Natural Purposes | |
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The Argument from Humanity | |
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Conclusion | |
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Psychological Egoism | |
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Egoism and Altruism | |
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The Argument from Our Strongest Desires | |
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The Argument from Expected Benefit | |
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The Argument from Avoiding Misery | |
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Two Egoistic Strategies | |
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Appealing to the Guilty Conscience | |
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Expanding the Realm of Self-Interest | |
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Letting the Evidence Decide | |
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Conclusion | |
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Ethical Egoism | |
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Why Be Moral? | |
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Two Popular Arguments for Ethical Egoism | |
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The Self-Reliance Argument | |
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The Libertarian Argument | |
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The Best Argument for Ethical Egoism | |
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Three Problems for Ethical Egoism | |
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Egoism Violates Core Moral Beliefs | |
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Egoism Cannot Allow for the Existence of Moral Rights | |
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Egoism Arbitrarily Assigns Priority to Self-Interest | |
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Conclusion | |
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Consequentialism: Its Nature and Attractions | |
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The Nature of Consequentialism | |
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Its Structure | |
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Maximizing Goodness | |
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Moral Knowledge | |
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Actual versus Expected Results | |
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Assessing Actions and Intentions | |
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The Attractions of Utilitarianism | |
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Impartiality | |
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The Ability to Justify Conventional Moral Wisdom | |
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Conflict Resolution | |
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Moral Flexibility | |
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The Scope of the Moral Community | |
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Consequentialism: Its Difficulties | |
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Measuring Well-Being | |
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Utilitarianism Is Very Demanding | |
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Deliberation | |
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Motivation | |
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Action | |
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Impartiality | |
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No Intrinsic Wrongness (or Rightness) | |
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The Problem of Injustice | |
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Potential Solutions to the Problem of Injustice | |
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Justice Is Also Intrinsically Valuable | |
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Injustice Is Never Optimific | |
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Justice Must Sometimes Be Sacrificed | |
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Rule Consequentialism | |
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Conclusion | |
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The Kantian Perspective: Fairness and Justice | |
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Consistency and Fairness | |
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The Principle of Universalizability | |
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Morality and Rationality | |
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Assessing the Principle of Universalizability | |
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Integrity | |
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Kant on Absolute Moral Duties | |
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The Kantian Perspective: Autonomy and Respect | |
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The Principle of Humanity | |
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The Importance of Rationality and Autonomy | |
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The Good Will and Moral Worth | |
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Five Problems with the Principle of Humanity | |
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Vagueness | |
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Determining Just Deserts | |
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Are We Autonomous? | |
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Moral Luck | |
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The Scope of the Moral Community | |
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Conclusion | |
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The Social Contract Tradition: The Theory and Its Attractions | |
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The Lure of Proceduralism | |
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The Background of the Social Contract Theory | |
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The Prisoner's Dilemma | |
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Cooperation and the State of Nature | |
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The Advantages of Contractarianism | |
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Morality Is Essentially a Social Phenomenon | |
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It Explains and Justifies the Content of the Basic Moral Rules | |
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It Offers a Method for Justifying Every Moral Rule | |
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It Explains the Objectivity of Morality | |
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It Explains Why It Is Sometimes Acceptable to Break the Moral Rules | |
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More Advantages: Morality and the Law | |
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Contractarianism Justifies a Basic Moral Duty to Obey the Law | |
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The Contractarian Justification of Legal Punishment | |
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Contractarianism Justifies the State's Role in Criminal Law | |
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Contractarianism and Civil Disobedience | |
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The Social Contract Tradition: Problems and Prospects | |
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Why Be Moral? | |
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The Role of Consent | |
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Disagreement Among the Contractors | |
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The Scope of the Moral Community | |
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Conclusion | |
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Ethical Pluralism and Absolute Moral Rules | |
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The Structure of Moral Theories | |
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Is Torture Always Immoral? | |
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Preventing Catastrophes | |
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The Doctrine of Double Effect | |
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A Reply to the Argument from Disaster Prevention | |
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How the DDE Threatens Act Consequentialism | |
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Distinguishing Intention from Foresight | |
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Moral Conflict and Contradiction | |
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Is Moral Absolutism Irrational? | |
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The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing | |
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Conclusion | |
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Ethical Pluralism: Prima Facie Duties and Ethical Particularism | |
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Ross's Ethic of Prima Facie Duties | |
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The Advantages of Ross's View | |
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Pluralism | |
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We Are Sometimes Permitted to Break the Moral Rules | |
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Moral Conflict | |
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Moral Regret | |
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Addressing the Anti-Absolutist Arguments | |
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A Problem for Ross's View | |
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Knowing the Fundamental Moral Rules | |
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Skepticism | |
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Coherentism | |
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Self-Evidence | |
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Self-Evidence and the Testing of Moral Theories | |
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Knowing the Right Thing To Do | |
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Ethical Particularism | |
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Three Problems for Ethical Particularism | |
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Its Lack of Unity | |
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Accounting for Moral Knowledge | |
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Some Things Possess Permanent Moral Importance | |
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Conclusion | |
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Virtue Ethics | |
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The Standard of Right Action | |
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Moral Complexity | |
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Moral Understanding | |
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Moral Education | |
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The Nature of Virtue | |
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Virtue and the Good Life | |
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Objections | |
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Tragic Dilemmas | |
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Does Virtue Ethics Offer Adequate Moral Guidance? | |
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Is Virtue Ethics Too Demanding? | |
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Who Are The Moral Role Models? | |
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Conflict and Contradiction | |
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The Priority Problem | |
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Conclusion | |
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Feminist Ethics | |
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The Elements of Feminist Ethics | |
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Moral Development | |
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Women's Experience | |
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The Ethics of Care | |
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The Importance of Emotions | |
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Against Unification | |
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Against Impartiality and Abstraction | |
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Against Competition | |
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Downplaying Rights | |
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Challenges for Feminist Ethics | |
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Conclusion | |
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The Status Of Morality | |
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Ethical Relativism | |
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Moral Skepticism | |
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Two Kinds of Ethical Relativism | |
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Some Implications of Ethical Subjectivism and Cultural Relativism | |
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Moral Infallibility | |
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Moral Equivalence | |
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No Intrinsic Value | |
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Questioning Our Own Commitments | |
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Moral Progress | |
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Contradiction and Disagreement | |
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Ideal Observers | |
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Conclusion | |
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Moral Nihilism | |
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Error Theory | |
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Expressivism | |
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How Is It Possible to Argue Logically about Morality? | |
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Expressivism and Amoralists | |
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The Nature of Moral Judgment | |
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Conclusion | |
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Ten Arguments Against Moral Objectivity | |
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Objectivity Requires Absolutism | |
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All Truth is Subjective | |
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Equal Rights Entail Equal Plausibility | |
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Moral Objectivity Supports Dogmatism | |
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Moral Objectivity Supports Intolerance | |
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Moral Disagreement Undermines Moral Objectivity | |
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Atheism Undermines Moral Objectivity | |
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The Absence of Categorical Reasons Undermines Moral Objectivity | |
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Moral Motivation Undermines Moral Objectivity | |
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Values Have No Place in a Scientific World | |
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Conclusion | |
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References | |
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Suggestions for Further Reading | |
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Glossary | |
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Index" | |