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| Preface | |
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| The Concerns of Moral Philosophy | |
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| The Nature of Ethics | |
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| Why Study Moral Philosophy? | |
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| The Origins of Morality | |
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| The Activity of Evaluating | |
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| Guiding and Directing Conduct | |
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| Value Judgments and Prescriptive Judgments | |
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| Normative Judgments and Descriptive Statements | |
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| Moral and Nonmoral Judgments | |
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| Three Kinds of Moral Problems | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Theories of Moral Right and Wrong | |
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| Moral Legalism and Moral Particularism | |
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| Rights-Based Theories | |
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| The Relationship Between Goodness and Rightness | |
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| Axiological and Deontological Moral Theories | |
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| Strong and Weak Deontologism | |
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| Consequentialist and Nonconsequentialist Axiological Theories | |
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| The Balance of Good and Bad in Consequences | |
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| The Good of Self, Others, and Collectivities | |
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| Micro Ethics and Macro Ethics | |
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| Outline | |
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| Character and Conduct | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| The Ethics of Virtue | |
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| Virtue in Ancient Philosophy | |
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| Kinds of Virtue | |
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| Plato and the Virtuous Person | |
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| The Soul's Function | |
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| Virtue, Goodness, and Right Conduct | |
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| Some Parallels in Hindu Ethics | |
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| Aristotle and the Habits of Virtue | |
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| The Mean | |
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| Moral Perceptions | |
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| The Practical Syllogism | |
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| Aristotle's Deontologism | |
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| Moral Virtue and Right Conduct | |
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| The Priority of an Ethics of Conduct over an Ethics of Virtue | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Virtue and Happiness | |
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| Plato and Aristotle on the Necessity of Virtue for Happiness | |
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| Perfectionism and the Highest Good | |
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| Augustine and the Permanence of the Highest Good | |
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| Does Everyone Desire Happiness? Nietzsche on Master Morality and Slave Morality | |
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| Is Moral Virtue Desirable? | |
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| The Importance of an Account of Conduct for the Ethics of Virtue | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| The Ethics of Conduct | |
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| Ethical and Psychological Egoism | |
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| Should We Seek Only Our Own Good? | |
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| Three Objections to Ethical Egoism | |
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| The Paradoxical Nature of Ethical Egoism | |
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| Psychological Egoism in Human Motivation | |
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| A Critique of Psychological Egoism | |
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| Butler's Argument | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| The Divine Command Theory | |
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| The Case of Abraham and Isaac | |
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| Greek and Christian Views of Human Nature | |
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| God's Commands According to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam | |
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| The Relationship Between God's Will and Moral Rightness | |
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| A Problem for the Divine Command Theory | |
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| Commands to Do What Seems Impossibly Idealistic | |
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| An Attempted Reconciliation of the Commandment to Love with Human Judgments of What Is Possible | |
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| Does God Ever Command Us to Do What Is Wrong? | |
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| An Attempted Reconciliation of God's Commands with Human Judgments | |
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| Would God's Commanding the Torture of a Child Make It Right? | |
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| What Does It Mean to Call God Good? | |
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| Is God Extrinsically Good Because He Is a Loving God? | |
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| Can "Right" Be Defined by Reference to God's Commands? | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Natural Law Ethics | |
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| Morality and Nature | |
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| What Does Natural Law Ethics Mean by "Nature"? | |
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| Stoic Natural Law Ethics | |
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| The Stoic Conception of Duty | |
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| Christian Natural Law Ethics | |
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| Saint Thomas Aquinas | |
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| Human and Theological Virtues | |
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| Problems for Natural Law Ethics: Homosexuality and Sexual Harassment | |
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| Natural Law as Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy | |
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| Is God Necessary for Ethics? | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Kantianism | |
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| Morality Is Not Founded on Happiness | |
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| The Good Will | |
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| The Concept of Duty | |
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| Objective Principles and Hypothetical Imperatives | |
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| Subjective Principles or Maxims | |
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| The Categorical Imperative | |
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| Applying the Categorical Imperative | |
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| Treating Persons as Ends | |
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| The Will as Universal Lawgiver | |
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| Kant Not a Consequentialist | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Consequentialism | |
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| The Attraction of Consequentialism | |
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| Deontological Consequentialism | |
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| Utilitarianism | |
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| Intrinsic and Extrinsic Value | |
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| Problems for Utilitarianism | |
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| Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism | |
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| Actual Rule Utilitarianism and Ideal Rule Utilitarianism | |
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| Are AU and IRU Equivalent? | |
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| Can We Ever Know all of an Act's Consequences? | |
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| What Counts as a Consequence of an Act? | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Justice | |
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| The Idea of Justice | |
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| Distributive Justice | |
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| Justice, Consistency, and Rationality | |
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| Three Conceptions of Distributive Justice | |
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| Distributive Justice as Pure Procedural Justice | |
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| The Transition to Metaethics | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Metaethics | |
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| Ethical Relativism | |
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| Cultural Diversity | |
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| What Is Ethical Relativism? | |
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| Universalism and Absolutism | |
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| What Difference Does It Make Whether Relativism Is True? | |
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| Relativism and Moral Disagreements | |
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| Can There Even Be Genuine Moral Disagreements According to Relativism? | |
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| Is There Cultural Diversity in Basic Moral Beliefs? | |
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| Cultural Diversity in Basic Moral Beliefs Would Not Establish Relativism | |
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| Universalism and the Ground of Morality | |
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| Are Logic and Truth Themselves Relative? | |
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| Relativism and Moral Tolerance | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Can Moral Principles Be Justified? | |
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| Diversity at the Level of Principles | |
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| Moral Foundationalism: Intuitionism and Naturalism | |
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| Ethical Naturalism | |
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| Contractarianism | |
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| Rawls and the Original Position | |
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| Moral Coherentism | |
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| Problems in the Application of Rules and Principles | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| The Nature of Moral Judgments | |
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| Ethical Language | |
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| Categories of Ethical Terms | |
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| Categorial and Cross-Categorial Definitions | |
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| Are Rights Reducible to Deontic and Value Terms? | |
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| Are Ethical Terms Definable by Non-Ethical Terms? | |
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| Is Ethics Autonomous? | |
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| Autonomy and Reductionism | |
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| Is "Good" Indefinable? | |
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| Moral Realism | |
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| Cognitivism | |
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| Ethical Naturalism and Intuitionism | |
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| The Naturalistic Fallacy | |
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| The Open-Question Argument | |
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| The Error Theory | |
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| Noncognitivism | |
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| From Meaning to Use | |
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| The Noncognitivist Objection to Cognitivism | |
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| Possible Cognitivist Replies | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| New Bearings in Ethics | |
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| Feminist Ethics | |
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| Questioning Traditional Ethics | |
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| What Is Feminist Ethics? | |
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| Minimalist Feminist Ethics: Wollstonecraft's Rights-Based Theory | |
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| A Standard Feminist Ethics: The Ethics of Caring | |
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| Radical Feminist Ethics | |
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| Feminist Objections to Traditional Ethics | |
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| Interpreting Feminist Ethics | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Contextualism: An Ethics of Pragmatism | |
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| A Deweyan Approach to Ethics | |
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| Subjective, Actual, and Actionable Rightness | |
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| The Contextualist Alternative | |
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| Elements of the Moral Situation | |
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| Nurturing Goods | |
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| A Kantian Objection | |
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| The Importance of Personal Decision | |
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| Intuition or Emotion? | |
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| Conscience and Human Nature | |
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| Contextualism and Relativism | |
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| Universalism and a Moral Postulate | |
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| Notes | |
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| Discussion Questions | |
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| Appendix | |
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| Index | |