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For more information about the Access series of books for Religious Studies at A level, click here.
For further books on ethics, along with a range of other material, click on the 'Ethics' link above.
For FREE notes, including those on many key topics for students at A level, just click on the 'Notes for Students' link at the top of this page.
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The revised edition of this title provides an overview of the major ethical theories found in Western Philosophy and religion, with quotations from original sources, and examples of how the theories may be applied to a range of contemporary moral issues.
It is particularly suitable for those taking papers in Ethics at AS and A2 level, and aims to give students a sound background for handling particular issues in applied ethics.
Every chapter has a Revision checklist / study guide Contents:
1. Introduction 1 Four basic approaches 2 An historical perspective 3 The challenge of ethics
2. Ethical Arguments 1 Presenting an ethical argument 2 Justifying your views 3 Theory and practice 4 Rights and responsibilities 5 The absolute and the relative
3. What makes Morality Possible? 1 Three basic requirements 2 Causes and conditioning 3 How free do I need to be? 4 Is and ought
4. Moral Language 1 Some ethical terms 2 Can moral claims be justified?
5. Plato and the Quest for Justice 1 Introduction 2 The Republic 3 The ideal ruler 4 The account of the cave 5 The ideal state 6 Why is it better to be just than unjust?
6. Aristotle and Happiness 1 The quest for eudaimonia 2 The mean 3 The Epicureans 4 The Stoics
7. Aquinas and Natural Law 1 Two approaches to Christian morality 2 Final Causes 3 Features of Natural Law
8. On What Should Morality be Based? 1 Self interest? 2 Thomas Hobbes 3 John Locke 4 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 5 Modern contract and rights-based approaches 6 Emotions?
9. Utilitarianism 1 Jeremy Bentham 2 John Stuart Mill 3 Preference and motive utilitarianism 4 Utilitarianism in practice 5 Criticisms of utilitarianism
10. Kant and Moral Choice 1 A sense of moral obligation 2 The Good Will 3 The background to Kant’s moral theory 4 The Postulates: freedom, God and immortality 5 The Categorical Imperative 6 Absolute or relative?
11. Morality and Power 1 Introduction 2 God is dead 3 Willing the Superman 4 Master morality and slave morality 5 The threat of the Christian ascetic 6 The eternal recurrence 7 A challenge and a problem
12. An Existential Approach 1 Introduction 2 Søren Kierkegaard 3 Martin Heidegger 4 Jean-Paul Sartre 5 Simone de Beauvoir 6 Ethical implications of the existentialist approach
13. Situation Ethics 1 Introductions 2 The meaning of ‘love’ 3 Evaluating situation ethics
14. Religion and Ethics 1 Introductions 2 The relationship between morality and religion 3 Religious authority: the Divine Command theory of ethics 4 Ethics and the Religious Traditions
15. Conscience 1 A Christian view 2 The secular conscience
16. Virtue Ethics 1 Background 2 What are the virtues? 3 Virtue ethics in Aristotle 4 The revival of virtue ethics 5 Feminist ethics 6 The distinctiveness of virtue ethics
Postscript: Where do we go from here? Glossary Timeline of Philosophers Click here to return to the book page
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This book gives a broad introduction to ethical theories for students at A level. But in order to deal with ethical issues, it is also important to have a working knowledge of the relevant facts. To get maximum benefit from this book, it should be used alongside titles that give factual information on actual moral dilemmas (such as those in the Access to Philosophy series: Medical Ethics, Issues of Life and Death, Sex and Relationships and Environmental Ethics). Of course - and in many ways better still - it should be read alongside the news items and comment columns of newspapers - that's where you find the raw material of ethical debate.
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