Introducing Ethics for Here and Now

Students learn how traditional ethical theories can be applied to practical problems.

Introducing Ethics is a brief text that encourages students to determine how the common wisdom of traditional ethical theories can be applied to practical problems such as the distribution of income and wealth, torture, terrorism, and gay and lesbian rights.

The text begins by challenging students to think about whether or not ethics is useful for making choices. It poses three questions: 1) Is morality determined by religion rather than reason? 2) Is everything relative? 3) Is it better to be an egoist?

Then, after laying out Utilitarian ethics, Kantian ethics, and Aristotelian ethics, the author poses an additional three challenges focused on the traditional conceptions of ethics: the environmental challenge, the feminist challenge, and the multicultural challenge.

Learning Goals

Upon completing this book readers will be able to: