Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life

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VICE AND VIRTUE IN EVERYDAY LIFE has been a bestseller in college ethics for more than two decades because it is well-liked by both instructors and students. Instructors appreciate it for its philosophical breadth and seriousness. Students welcome the engaging topics and readings. VICE AND VIRTUE IN EVERYDAY LIFE provides students with a lively selection of classical and contemporary readings on pressing matters of personal and social morality. The text includes an overview of seminal ethical theories, as well as a unique set of stimulating articles on matters of social responsibility, personal integrity and individual virtue. While the readings consistently represent different points of view, the book maintains a strong sense of the importance of avoiding cruelty and practicing kindness in a well-lived life. “This book fills a very needed niche…The variety of readings in terms of their tone, their scope, and their interdisciplinary make this a very unique and innovative text. The reading selections are all highly appropriate to a larger study of both theories and practical application and, most importantly, they are interesting and engaging. The readings really inspire students to engage in in-depth, critical analysis. The groupings of readings within the chapters are much more thought-provoking than presenting the readings as separate units. The authors don’t presume to inform the readers as to which viewpoint is “better” but instead presents a variety of readings encouraging students to truly analyze both the theorists as well as their own personal beliefs.” – Lori Rosenthal, Emerson College Preface. Introduction. 1. GOOD AND EVIL. Philip Hallie: From Cruelty to Goodness. Jonathan Bennett: The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn. John T. Noonan, Jr.: Three Moral Certainties. Philip Hallie: The Evil that Men Think – And Do. Tzvetan Todorov: Facing the Extreme: The War of All Against All. Anne Applebaum: The Gulag: Strategies for Survival. Stanley Milgram: The Perils of Obedience. Josiah Royce: The Moral Insight. Herman Melville: Billy Budd. Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil. 2. IS IT ALL RELATIVE? Herodotus: Morality as Custom. Ruth Benedict: A Defense of Moral Relativism. William Graham Sumner: A Defense of Cultural Relativism. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban: Cultural Relativism and Universal Rights. Jane Perlez: Uganda’s Women: Children, Drudgery, and Pain. Lawrence Adam Lengbeyer: An Alternative to Moral Relativism. Louis Pojman: Who’s to Judge?. Thomas Nagel: The Objective Basis of Morality. R.M. MacIver: The Deep Beauty of the Golden Rule. Martin Luther King, Jr.: I Have a Dream. The United Nations Charter: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 3. MORALITY AND SELF-INTEREST. Plato: The Ring of Gyges. Thomas Hobbes: Of the State of Men without Civil Society. David Hume: Of Self-Love. Harry Browne: The Unselfishness Trap. James Rachels: Egoism and Moral Skepticism. Ayn Rand: The Virtue of Selfishness. Louis Pojman: Egoism, Self-Interest, and Altruism. Colin McGinn: Why Not Be a Bad Person? Peter Singer: Why Act Morally? 4. MORAL DOCTRINES AND MORAL THEORIES The Judeo-Christian Tradition. Robert C. Mortimer: Morality Is Based on God”s Commands. John Arthur: Why Morality Does Not Depend on Religion. David Hume: Of Benevolence. John Stuart Mill: Uilitarianism. Bernard Williams: A Critique of Utilitarianism. Robert Nozick: The Experience Machine. Ursula Le Guin: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Immanuel Kant: Good Will, Duty, and the Categorical Imperative. Fred Sommers: The Holocaust and Moral Philosophy. Richard Taylor:Critique of Kant. 5. VIRTUE. Aristotle: Happiness and the Virtues. Saint Augustine: Virtue and the Human Soul. Epictetus: The Art of Living. Vice Admiral James Stockdale: The World of Epictetus. Bernardo Mayo: Virtue or Duty? Alasdair MacIntyre: Tradition and the Virtues. Rachels: The Ethics of Virtue. Adam Smith: Of Justice and Beneficence. Charles Darwin: The Origin of the Moral Sense. Bowen McCoy: The Parable of the Sadhu. 6. VICE. Plutarch: Vice. Saint Augustine: The Depths of Vice. Jonathan Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Dante Alighieri: The Hypocrites. Samuel Johnson: Self-Deception. Bishop Butler: Upon Self-Deceit. Immanuel Kant: Jealousy, Envy, and Spite. Leo Tolstoy: How Much Land Does a Man Need? A Parable on Greed. 7. MORALITY AND SOCIAL POLICY. Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence, and Morality. John Arthur: World Hunger and Moral Obligation: The Case Against Singer. James Shikwati: “For Heaven”s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!” John T. Noonan, Jr.: An Almost Absolute Value in History. Mary Anne Warren: On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion. Judith Thomson: A Defense of Abortion. Don Marquis: Why Abortion is Immoral. Immanuel Kant: On Duties to Animals. James Rachels: A Moral Defense of Vegetarianism. Peter Singer: Down on the Factory Farm. Michael Pollan: An Animal”s Place. Roger Scruton: The Case Against Animal Rights. Barbara Bergman: The Case for Affirmative Action. Shelby Steele: What is Wrong with Affirmative Action? 8. THE MEANING OF LIFE. Tao Ch”ien: Substance, Shadow and Spirit. Bhagavad-Gita: Selection. Buddha: The Four Noble Truths. Leo Tolstoy: My Confession. Bertrand Russell: A Free Man”s Worship. Albert Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus. Thomas Nagel: The Meaning of Life. Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism is Humanism. Joel Feinberg: Absurd Self-fulfillment: An Essay on the Perversity of the Gods. Viktor Frankl: The Human Search for Meaning. The Book of Job: Selection.

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