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Print Price: $164.99

Format:
Paperback
448 pp.
7.3" x 9.2"

ISBN-13:
9780195148084

Copyright Year:
2010

Imprint: OUP US


The Moral Domain

Guided Readings in Philosophical and Literary Texts

Norman Lillegard

The Moral Domain is a hybrid, combining the best features of a reader and a textbook. First, it provides extensive readings from the central writings in ethics along with writings from literary figures who offer concrete examples of lived ethics. And second, it includes thorough introductions and interspersed explanations and commentaries throughout, helping students to more fully understand and participate in the ethical ideas and issues.

The philosophical selections are both Western and non-Western, including works and authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, MacIntyre, and Hursthouse, the Bhagavad Gita, Hsun-Tzu, and Confucian works. Literary figures include Sophocles, Tolstoy, the Bible, Camus, Twain, Dostoevsky, Golding, and Wharton, among others.

The book is highly interactive, integrating philosophical and literary reading selections with explanations and a variety of study questions to test comprehension and encourage reflections. The book is ideal for introduction to ethics and moral philosophy courses.

Preface
Principal Aims
Some ways to Use this Text
Sample Syllabi
Introduction: The Moral Domain
1. Relativism, Skepticism, and The Possibility of Moral Judgment
Tolstoy: After the Ball
Rachels: Against Relativism
Midgely: Being Judgmental and Moral Judgment
The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Further Discussion and Applications
Accepting Differences
Tolerance
The Possibility of Real Moral Differences
Williams: Thin and Thick Moral Concepts
Glendon: Some origins of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
2. The Good Life, Reason, and Tragic Conflict
Sophocles: Antigone
Socrates and Plato: from Apology, Phaedo Euthyphro, Protagoras, Republic
Further Discussions and Applications
Julia Annas: Why return to the Cave?
Iris Murdoch: Goodness and Purity
Charles Taylor: Plato's Basis for "Strong Evaluation"
Popper: Plato and Totalitarianism
3. The Good Life, Reason and Virtue
Aristotle: from The Nichomachean Ethics
Further Discussions and Applications
Kraut, Nussbaum: Scientific Ethics
Sher, Bennett: Moral Education
Cooper: Friendship and Community
Wallace: The Virtue of Generosity
The Confucian School: Confucian Parallels (and Differences)
4. Morality and Religion
Psalm 1, Psalm 19
Aquinas: from Summa Theologica: The Treatise On Law
From Summa Theologica: On Wisdom and Folly
Aquinas: The Principle Of Double Effect (from de Malo)
The Story of Abraham and Issac (Gen. 22)
Duns Scotus: On Divine Commands and Divine Will (from the Ordinatio and the Reportatio, trans. Thomas Williams)
The Bhagavad Gita
Further Discussions and Applications
Further Points about Natural Law
Further Points about Divine Commands
Rachels: Religious Worship as Incompatible with Morality
Adams: A revised Divine Command Ethics
Eleanor Stump: Folly and the Death Camp Doctors
Matthews: Double Effect, Abortion, Euthanasia
Anscombe: Double Effect, Warfare and Murder
Epictetus: The Gita and Stoicism
5. Evil, Vice and Reason
Dostoevsky: from The Brothers Karamazov
Nietzsche: Art and Morality. Aristocratic morality. Suspicion of the Good/Evil Distinction
Albert Camus: The Human Crisis
Further Discussions and Applications
Taylor: Evil and Good as "Natural"
Benn: Wickedness
Arendt: The Banality of Evil
Johnson: The Vice of Self Deception
Augustine, Dante: Vice and Punishment
6. Egoism, Reason and Ethics
Golding: Lord of the Flies
Mencius And Hsun-Tzu: Whether Human Nature Is Inherently Good Or Evil
Hobbes: from Leviathan
Butler: Sermon XI From Fifteen Sermons
Further Discussions and Applications
Browne: The Unselfishness Trap
Baier: Reason and Morality
Rational Choice, Ethics, and the Prisoner's Dilemma
Wilson: Egoism, Altruism and Biology
Broadie: An Aristotelian account of Reason, Egoism and Justice
7. Feeling, Reason, and Morality
Mark Twain: from Huckleberry Finn
Hume: from An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
From Treatise of Human Nature
Further Discussions and Applications
Emotivism, Prescriptivism, Non-cognitivism, the Open Question Argument
Carroll Bennett: The Walrus, the Carpenter, Edwards and Himler: Moral sentiments and sentimentality
Blackburn: Projectivism
Searle: Deriving an Ought from an Is
8. Reason, Duty, and Dignity
Trollope: from Dr. Wortle's School
Kant: from The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals
Further Discussions and Applications
W. D. Ross: Prima Facie Duties and Conflict Between Duties
Sorell: Personal Goodness and Kantian Good Will
Singer: Kant on Sex, "Using" people, and Objectifying People
Reagan: Kant on the Treatment of Animals
Kohlberg: Moral Development, Moral Education, and Autonomy
Gilligan and Homiak: The Moral Focus of Women
Habermas: Kantian Ethical Concepts and Discursive Reason
9. Rightness, Reason and Consequences
Dostoevsky: "Reason," Consequences, and Murder (from Crime and Punishment)
Bentham:The Calculation of Pleasures and Pains (from The Principles of Morals and Legislation)
Mill: Utility, Higher and Lower Pleasures, and Justice (from Utilitarianism)
Further Discussions and Applications
Williams: Against Utilitarianism
Hare: A defense of Utilitarianism
Schick: Under What Description?
Singer: Feeding the Hungry
Rawls: Social Justice and Utility
Veatch: Allocating Scarce Medical Resources
10. Virtues, Narrative, and Community: Some Recent Discussions
Wharton: from The House of Mirth
MacIntyre: Narrative, Human Action and the Virtues (from After Virtue )
Further Discussions and Applications
Hursthouse: Problems with Virtue Theories
Roberts: Virtues and the Will
Hill: Virtue and Natural Environments
Hallie, Sauvage: The People of Le Chambon

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

Norman Lillegard is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Making Sense - Margot Northey and Joan McKibbin

Special Features

  • Integrates explanations and commentary with longer and shorter reading selections from major philosophers.
  • Includes numerous selections from literary figures that enhance and bring to life the ethical issues.
  • Built-In "study guide format" intersperses questions and commentary that guide students to grasp the main concepts.
  • "Further Discussion and Applications" sections show how ethical theory impacts contemporary moral problems (human rights, friendship, abortion, warfare, feminism, hunger, etc.) -These sections help show the connection between theory and moral problems and debates.
  • Includes non-Western perspectives and women's voices: Confucian views, Bhagavad Gita, Hsun-Tzu and Julia Annas, Iris Murdoch, Martha Nussbaum, Eleonore Stump, Sarah Broadie, Carol Gilligan and others.