Being good an introduction to ethics - Blackburn, Simon (Oxford University Press, 2001)
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-159) and index
Seven threats to ethics: Death of God -- Relativism -- Egoism -- Evolutionary theory -- Determinism and futility -- Unreasonable demands -- False consciousness -- Some ethical ideas: Birth -- Death -- Desire and the meaning of life -- Pleasure -- Greatest happiness of the greatest number -- Freedom from the bad -- Freedom and paternalism -- Rights and natural rights -- Foundations: Reasons and foundations -- Being good and living well -- Categorical imperative -- Contracts and discourse -- Common point of view -- Confidence restored -- Appendix: United Nations' universal declaration of human rights
Simon Blackburn, author of the best-selling Think, structures this short introduction around these and other threats to ethics. Confronting seven different objections to our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures, he charts a course through the philosophical quicksands that often engulf us. Then, turning to problems of life and death, he shows how we should think about the meaning of life, and how we should mistrust the soundbite-sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates. Finally he offers a critical tour of the ways the philosophical tradition has tried to provide foundations for ethics, from Plato and Aristotle through to contemporary debates