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Print Price: $143.99

Format:
Paperback
576 pp.
6.5" x 9.25"

ISBN-13:
9780190621155

Copyright Year:
2018

Imprint: OUP US

A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox

Fourth Edition

Anthony Weston

A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox invites students to think beyond the rigid "pro" and "con" positions of tough ethical problems by developing creative problem solving skills, moral vision, and genuine dialogue. Provocative selections from a wide range of philosophers, essayists, community activists, and students are interwoven with Weston's own discussions to equip students with the tools they need to think critically about contentious issues.

Readership : College students, academics.

Reviews

"Weston's A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox is one of a kind: it radically approaches ethics and critical thinking from the perspective of everyday experience, value, and problem solving. It provides a diverse array of selections from within and without the traditional philosophical canon."
--Albert R. Spencer, Portland State University
"Weston stands above the competition because of his emphasis on developing practical skills for navigating a complex, interrelated world. He includes a wide range of ethical approaches--from Kant to Lakota to Confucius--and provides the best range of exercises and pedagogical devices that I have seen."
--Tayo Basquiat, Bismark State College
"A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox is highly readable, moves across a great range of topics, offers a diverse set of perspectives, including many contemporary voices, and consistently offers students new things to think about or new ways of thinking. It helps students and instructors, working together, to train themselves in good practices of ethics for life. There is no other book like it on the market."
--James H. VanderMey, Mid Michigan Community College
"This is a comprehensive, wide-ranging, and erudite book that students will find accessible, interesting, and intellectually challenging. It covers all the topics and thinkers that need to be there (Kant, Utilitarianism, etc.) and some that are less standard but that enrich the ways our students can think about ethics."
--Anna Peterson, University of Florida
"I believe that A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox is far and away the most significant primary ethics textbook that I can select for the lives of the students who enroll in my course."
--James H. VanderMey, Mid Michigan Community College
"A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox is superbly written, passionate, and poignant, and savvy about contemporary values."
--Frank Ryan, Kent State University
"This is a comprehensive, wide-ranging, and erudite book that students will find accessible, interesting, and intellectually challenging. It covers all the topics and thinkers that need to be there (Kant, Utilitarianism, etc.) and some that are less standard but that enrich the ways our students can think about ethics."
--Anna Peterson, University of Florida

*=New to this Edition
Note: Each chapter ends with:
- For review
- For reflection and discussion
- Notes
Part One: Embracing Ethics
1. What is Ethics?
Taking Care
Ethics as a Learning Experience
Reading 1: C.P. Ellis, "It Was Almost Like Being Born Again" *
Going Farther #1: Toward an Interpersonal Ethics
Reading 2: Margaret Urban Walker, from "Moral Understandings" *
Going Farther #2: Two Views of Ethics and Other Animals
Reading 3: Alice Walker, "Am I Blue?"
Reading 4: Ted Kerasote, Selections from Bloodties
2. Ethical Short-Circuits (and How to Avoid Them)
Flying by Instinct
Offhand Self-Justification
Dogmatism
Ethics and Diversity
Who Needs Ethics?
Going Farther #3: Ethics in Extraordinary Times?"
Reading 5: Rebecca Solnit, "By the Way, Your Home is On Fire" *
3. Ethics and Religion
An Approach to Religious Ethics
Let the Stories Be Stories
Thinking for Yourself
Reading: Jamal Rahman, "Making Peace with the Sword Verse"
Part Two: Moral Values
4. Taking Values Seriously
Moral Values Among Others
Attending to Values
Families of Moral Values
Notes on the Families
Going Farther #4: An Abortion Story
Reading 7: Rayna Rapp, "XYLO"
5. The Ethics of the Person
Valuing Persons
Reading 8: Philip Hallie, from "Le Chambon"
Kant's Categorical Imperative
Reading 9: Immanuel Kant, from Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
Rights and Persons
Reading 10: From The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights
Complications
Going Farther #5: Pornography and the Ethics of the Person
Reading 11: Gloria Steinem, from "Erotica vs. Pornography" *
Going Farther #6: Inside Racism Today
Reading 12: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Selections from "A Letter to My Son" *
6. The Ethics of Happiness
Happiness
Reading 13: Barbara Frederickson, from Positivity *
Utilitarianism
Reading 14: John Stuart Mill, From Utilitarianism
Reading 15: Esperanza Guisán, "An Ethic of Liberty and Solidarity" *
Complications
Going Farther #7: Ethics and Conceptions of Justice
Going Farther #8: A Utilitarian Approach to Poverty
7. The Ethics of Virtue
An Abundance of Virtues
A Greek View of Virtue
Reading 16: Aristotle, from Nicomachean Ethics
Chinese Views of Virtue
Reading 17: Lao Tzu, from the Tao Te Ching
Cultivating Virtue
Reading 18: John Sullivan, from Living Large
8. The Ethics of Relationship
Care Ethics
Reading 19: Nel Noddings, From Caring
Ethics and Community
Reading 20: Kwasi Wiredu, "The Moral Foundations of an African Culture"
The Expanding Circle
Reading 21: Aldo Leopold, from "The Land Ethic"
Complications
Going Farther #9: Building a Student Code of Ethics
Reading 22: Brook J. Sadler, "What's Wrong with Plagiarism?" *
Going Farther #10: Values on the Edge?
Reading 23: Edward Abbey, "The Great American Desert"
Part Three: Skills for Ethical Practice
9. Minding the Evidence
Facts and Sources
Generalizations
Reading 24: Martin Fowler, Selections from The Ethical Practice of Critical Thinking
More Pitfalls
Quick Reference: Critical-Thinking Basics
10. Judging Like Cases Alike
Consistency is a Challenge
Achieving Consistency
The Golden Rule
Reading 25: Harry Gensler, Selections from Ethics and the Golden Rule *
Constructed Analogies
Reading 26: Richard and Val Routley, "The Nuclear Train to the Future" *
Quick Reference: Judging Like Cases Alike
Going Farther #11: Reconsidering Other Animals: Consistency Challenges for Everyone
Reading 27: Jonathan Saffran Foer, "A Case for Eating Dogs" *
Reading 28: Rhys Southan, from "The Vegans Have Landed" *
Going Farther #12: Children's Liberation?
Reading 29: Amy Glaser, "Beyond Adultism" *
11. Dialogue
How to Have a Fruitless Debate
How to Have a Useful Discussion
Reading 30: Mary Jacksteit and Adrienne Kaufmann, The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice, "Common Ground Rules"
Reading 31: Spoma Jovanovic, "Deepening Ethical Dialogue"
12. When Values Clash
Right Versus Right
Bringing Values into Congruence
Big Decisions
Reading 32: Roger Gottlieb, "Can We Talk? Understanding the 'Other Side' in the Animal Rights Debates"
Quick Reference: When Values Clash
Going Farther #13: Class Ethical Commitments
13. Creative Problem-Solving
A Feeling for Possibility
Creative Explorations
Creative Provocations
Reframing Problems
Quick Reference: Methods for Creative Problem-Solving in Ethics
Going Farther #14: Can the Abortion Debate be Reframed?
Going Farther #15: Where Ethics Meets Politics
14. Moral Vision
What is Moral Vision?
The Uses of Moral Vision
Toward a New Vision of Aging
Reading 33: Bill Thomas, "Eldertopia" (Selections from What Are Old People For?)
Reading 34: Ursula K. LeGuin, "Into the Spaceship, Granny: The Space Crone" *
Quick Reference: Moral Vision
Going Farther #16: Ethics and Sustainability
Reading 35: William McDonough, "Design for a New World" *
Resources
Eight Maxims for Making a Difference
1. You Can Do It
Reading 36: Danusha Goska, "Living Ideals" *
2. There are Many Ways
Reading 37: Ian Frazier, On the Rez *
3. Trust in Better Possibilities
4. Keep at It
Reading 38: Maggie Castor, "Malala" *
5. Creative Leveraging
6. Stay Open to Complexity
7. There is No Way to Ethics; Ethics is the Way
Reading 39: Sarah van Gelder, "At Standing Rock, a Sense of Purpose *
8. Bring Your Whole Toolbox
Going Farther #17: Personal Ethical Mission Statements
Going Farther #18: Ethical Change Projects
Endnotes: Teaching Like a Pragmatist
Key Terms in this Book
Major Ethical Issues Discussed
Index

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Anthony Weston is Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Elon University. He is the author of more than a dozen books including A Practical Companion to Ethics, Fourth Edition (2010), Creativity for Critical Thinkers (2007), and Creative Problem-Solving in Ethics (2007), all published by Oxford University Press, and Mobilizing the Green Imagination (2012).

There are no related titles available at this time.

Special Features

Approaches contentious topics with a reconstructive intent - rather than trying to determine which side is right, the book examines the strengths of each argument.
Conversational and engaging writing style makes the material accessible for students.
Includes traditional and non-traditional readings such as Aristotle and Alice Walker.
Reflects some of the systematic critiques of traditional ethics that have been advanced by pragmatists, feminists, postmodernists and others in the last 25 years.
Themes are introduced to improve ethical intelligence and put issues in a "real-life" context.
Experiential and applied activities allow students to test their skills.
Goes beyond the goals of traditional ethics texts, including finding the facts, speech awareness, moral vision and imagination, and learning how to "break out of the box" that reduces many ethical problems to dilemmas between two sharply opposed and supposedly exhaustive options.

New to this Edition

Increased the number and variety of the "Using Your Tools" sections, and interpolates them more often. They are now called "Going Farther" sections.
New and expanded Going Farther sections appear more often, carrying the themes of the preceding section farther and more thoroughly into practice, often with readings.
14 new readings including "An Ethic of Liberty and Solidarity" by Esperanza Guisan (Ch. 6), selections from "Letter to My Son" by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Ch. 5), and "The Nuclear Train to the Future" by Richard and Val Routley (Ch. 10).
Streamlined table of contents brings the text to 14 chapters, making it ideal for a one-semester course.
Parallel For Reflection and Discussion exercises in Chapters 5-8 examine the same six broad moral issues, allowing students to compare and contrast their responses to the same issues through the lens of various systems of moral values.
Enhanced pedagogical tools including a new glossary of key terms, an annotated list of major issues discussed in the text, and expanded review questions.