Synopses & Reviews
This popular text uses examples from fiction and film to show how ethical theories can be applied. By linking abstract theory to real life through storytelling and story analysis, Rosenstand offers a remarkably effective way of helping students understand and evaluate moral issues.
Table of Contents
PART I: The Story as a Tool of Ethics
1. Thinking About Values
After September 11
Morals, Values, and Ethics
Why be Moral?
Debating Moral Issues
Stories and Morals
2. Learning Moral Lessons from Stories
Didactic Stories
The New Interest in Stories
The Value of Stories
Stories Past and Present
Stories to Live and Die By
Seeing Your Life as a Story
Living in the Narrative Zone
PART II: What Should I Do? Theories of Conduct
3. Ethical Relativism
How to Deal with Moral Differences
The Lessons of Anthropology
Is Tolerance all We Need?
Refuting Ethical Relativism
4. Myself or Others?
Psychological Egoism
Ethical Egoism
Altruism: Ideal and Reciprocal
5. Using Your Reason, Part 1: Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham and the Hedonistic Calculus
John Stuart Mill: Another Utilitarian Vision
Act and Rule Utilitarianism
6. Using Your Reason, Part 2: Kant's Deontology
The Good Will
The Categorical Imperative
Rational Beings are Ends in Themselves
7. Personhood, Rights, and Justice
(and more...)