The most up-to-date and comprehensive reader in ethical theory available today, Pojman's anthology, ETHICAL THEORY, provides students with well over 70 of the most influential classic and contemporary readings. Articles are arranged in a coherent framework, with the presentation of each problem progressing from the classical to the contemporary and typically treated in a dialectic (pro and con) format. This challenging volume will situate your students squarely at the heart of every important debate now raging in the present scholarship of ethical theorists.

Pojman (philosophy, US Military Academy, West Point) provides an anthology of readings from the classical and contemporary periods by Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Nagel, John Stuart Mill, Aristotle, David Hume, Charles Darwin, J.L. Mackie, Peter Singer, Susan Wolf, and Robert Nozick, among others. Sections focus on ethical relativism and objectivism, morality, value, utilitarianism, Kantian and deontological systems, contractarianism (new to this edition), virtue-based systems, metaethics, moral realism, religion, and contemporary issues, such as sociobiology and determinism. Each essay is preceded by a brief introduction. Six essays by Alan Gewirth, Phillipa Foot, John Rawls, David Gauthier, T.M. Scanlon, and Richard Taylor have been added. There is no index.
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Pojman (philosophy, US Military Academy, West Point) provides an anthology of readings from the classical and contemporary periods by Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Nagel, John Stuart Mill, Aristotle, David Hume, Charles Darwin, J.L. Mackie, Peter Singer, Susan Wolf, and Robert Nozick, among others. Sections focus on ethical relativism and objectivism, morality, value, utilitarianism, Kantian and deontological systems, contractarianism (new to this edition), virtue-based systems, metaethics, moral realism, religion, and contemporary issues, such as sociobiology and determinism. Each essay is preceded by a brief introduction. Six essays by Alan Gewirth, Phillipa Foot, John Rawls, David Gauthier, T.M. Scanlon, and Richard Taylor have been added. There is no index. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"It is the best anthology on ethical theory, as a matter of fact, it is the best by far."

"This is a great text, one I look forward to using for some time."

Learn how philosophy relates to every area of life. ETHICAL THEORY: CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY READINGS cuts through the confusion and delivers a clearly understandable selection of the most influential classic and contemporary philosopher's major writings. It's all set up in a pro and con format, so you can watch the debate unfold before your eyes. Get the philosophy you need to know without the confusion with ETHICAL THEORY: CLASSICAL AND CONTEMPORARY READINGS.

Louis P. Pojman (1935-2005) was Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the United States Military Academy and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary/Columbia University. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Copenhagen and a Rockefeller Fellow at Hamburg University. He received his D.Phil. in Philosophy from Oxford University in 1997.His first position was at the University of Notre Dame, after which he taught at the University of Texas at Dallas. Later, at the University of Mississippi, he served for three years as Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. In 1995, he became Professor of Philosophy at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He most recently was Visiting Professor at Brigham Young University in Utah and Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Oxford University. Pojman won several research and teaching awards, including the Burlington Northern Award for Outstanding Teaching and Scholarship (1988) and the Outstanding Scholar/Teacher in the Humanities at the University of Mississippi (1994). He wrote in the areas of philosophy of religion, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy and authored or edited more than 30 books and 100 articles. Pojman passed away in 2005.

Preface. Part I: WHAT IS ETHICS? Plato: Socratic Morality: Crito. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part II: ETHICAL RELATIVISM VERSUS ETHICAL OBJECTIVISM. Herodotus: Custom is King. Thomas Aquinas: Objectivism: Natural Law. Ruth Benedict: A Defense of Ethical Relativism. Louis Pojman: A Critique of Ethical Relativism. Gilbert Harman: Moral Relativism Defended. Alan Gewirth: The Objective Status of Human Rights. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part III: MORALITY, SELF-INTEREST AND FUTURE SELVES. Plato: Why Be Moral? Richard Taylor: On the Socratic Dilemma. David Gauthier: Morality and Advantage. Gregory Kavka: A Reconciliation Project. Derek Parfit: Later Selves and Moral Principles. Bernard Williams: Persons, Character, and Morality. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part IV: VALUE. Jeremy Bentham: Classical Hedonism. Robert Nozick: The Experience Machine. Richard Taylor: Value and the Origin of Right and Wrong. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Transvaluation of Values. Derek Parfit: What Makes Someone's Life Go Best? Thomas Nagel: Value: The View from Nowhere. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part V: UTILITARIANISM AND CONSEQUENTIALISM. John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism. J.J.C. Smart: Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism. Kai Nielsen: Against Moral Conservatism. Bernard Williams: Against Utilitarianism. John Hospers: Rule-Utilitarianism. Robert Nozick: Side Constraints. Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence and Morality. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part VI: KANTIAN AND DEONTOLOGICAL SYSTEMS. Immanuel Kant: Foundation for the Metaphysic of Morals. W. D. Ross: What Makes Right Acts Right? Onora O'Neill: Kantian Formula of the End in Itself and World Hunger. Thomas Nagel: Moral Luck. Philippa Foot: Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives. Judith Jarvis Thomson: Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part VII: CONTRACTARIAN ETHICAL SYSTEMS. Thomas Hobbes: The Leviathan. David Gauthier: Why Contractarianism? John Rawls: Contractualism: Justice as Fairness. T.M. Scanlon: Contractualism and Utilitarianism. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part VIII: VIRTUE-BASED ETHICAL SYSTEMS. Aristotle: The Ethics of Virtue. Bernard Mayo: Virtue and the Moral Life. William Frankena: A Critique of Virtue-Based Ethics. Walter Schaller: Are Virtues No More than Dispositions to Obey Moral Rules? Alasdair MacIntyre: The Nature of the Virtues. Susan Wolf: Moral Saints. Louis P. Pojman: In Defense of Moral Saints. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part IX: THE FACT/VALUE PROBLEM: METAETHICS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. David Hume: On Reason and the Emotions: The Fact/Value Distinction. G. E. Moore: Non-Naturalism. A. J. Ayer: Emotivism. R. M. Hare: Prescriptivism: The Structure of Ethics and Morals. Geoffrey Warnock: The Object of Morality. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part X: MORAL REALISM AND THE CHALLENGE OF SKEPTICISM. J.L. Mackie: The Subjectivity of Values. Jonathan Harrison: A Critique of Mackie's Error Theory. Gilbert Harman: Moral Nihilism. Nicholas Sturgeon: Moral Explanations. Bernard Williams: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Bruce Russell: Two Forms of Ethical Skepticism. Michael Smith: A Defense of Moral Realism. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part XI: RELIGION AND ETHICS. Plato: Morality and Religion. Immanuel Kant: God and Immortality as Necessary Postulates of Morality. George Mavrodes: Religious and the Queerness of Morality. Kai Nielson: Ethics Without God. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part XII: CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES TO CLASSICAL ETHICAL THEORY. Part A. Sociobiology and the Question of Moral Responsibility. Charles Darwin: Ethics and the Descent of Man. E.O.Wilson: Sociobiology and Ethics. Michael Ruse: Evolution and Ethics: The Sociobiological Approach. Elliot Sober: Prospects for an Evolutionary Ethics. J.L. Mackie: The Law of the Jungle, Evolution and Morality. Suggestions for Further Readingon Sociobiology. Part B. The Challenge of Determinism to Moral Responsibility and Desert. Galen Strawson: The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility. Louis Pojman: Free Will, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility:A Response to Galen Strawson. Richard Taylor: A Libertarian Defense of Free Will and Responsibility. Suggestions for Further Reading on Moral Responsibility. Glossary of Ethical Terms.