Philosophical Ethics

This overview of classical and modern moral theory with short readings provides comprehensive coverage of ethics and coverage of rights, justice, liberty and law, with real-life cases introducing each chapter. While the book's content is theoretical rather than applied ethics, Beauchamp consistently applies the theories to practical moral problems. Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Mill are at the book's core and they are placed in the context of moral philosophical controversies of the last 30 years of the 20th century. In this edition one-third of the reading selections are new and all the selections in Chapter 8 on rights are new. Chapter 7 on Hume has been heavily reshaped and Chapter 1 has been reduced to get students past introductory material and into the philosophers.