The Right Thing To Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy 7th Edition by James Rachels, ISBN-13: 978-0078119088
[PDF eBook eTextbook]
- Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education; 7th edition (October 23, 2014)
- Language: English
- 400 pages
- ISBN-10: 0078119081
- ISBN-13: 978-0078119088
The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy is a companion reader to the best-selling text: The Elements of Moral Philosophy (ISBN-13: 978-1259914256). Authors James Rachels and Stuart Rachels offer engaging, thought-provoking essays on compelling issues that students are familiar with and understand. This rich collection of essays can be used on its own for a course on moral philosophy, or it can be used to supplement other introductory texts.
Table of Contents
Preface viii
About the Authors ix
INTRODUCTION
1. A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy James Rachels 1
2. Some Basic Points about Arguments James Rachels 19
UTILITARIANISM
3. Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill 29
4. Utilitarianism and Integrity Bernard Williams 40
5. The Experience Machine Robert Nozick 45
OTHER THEORETICAL ESSAYS
6 . The Subjectivity of Values J. L. Mackie 48
7. Our Sense of Right and Wrong C. S. Lewis 60
8. The Categorical Imperative Immanuel Kant 65
9. The Virtues Aristotle 69
10. Master Morality and Slave Morality Friedrich Nietzsche 76
11. Caring Relations and Principles of Justice Virginia Held 80
ABORTION
12. On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion
and Postscript on Infanticide Mary Anne Warren 87
13. Why Abortion Is Immoral Don Marquis 99
14. A Defense of Abortion Judith Jarvis Thomson 106
ANIMALS
15. All Animals Are Equal Peter Singer 123
16. Torturing Puppies and Eating Meat: It’s All in
Good Taste Alastair Norcross 133
17. Do Animals Have Rights? Tibor R. Machan 141
POVERTY
18. Famine, Affluence, and Morality Peter Singer 154
19. Poverty and Parenthood Stuart Rachels 164
THE DEATH PENALTY
20. A Defense of the Death Penalty Louis P. Pojman 182
21 . Why the United States Will Join the Rest of the World in
Abandoning Capital Punishment Stephen B. Bright 191
WAR, TERRORISM, AND TORTURE
22. Hellhole Atul Gawande 203
23. The Ethics of War and Peace Douglas P. Lackey 221
24. Fifty Years after Hiroshima John Rawls 230
25 . What Is Wrong with Terrorism? Thomas Nagel 238
26. Liberalism, Torture, and the Ticking Bomb David
Luban 241
SEX AND DRUGS
27. America’s Unjust Drug War Michael Huemer 255
28 . Our Sexual Ethics Bertrand Russell 269
29. A Few Words about Gay Marriage Andrew Sullivan 276
30. Same-Sex Marriage and the Argument from Public
Disagreement David Boonin 278
31. Alcohol and Rape Nicholas Dixon 289
RACE, WOMEN, AND IMMIGRATION
32. Letter from the Birmingham City Jail Martin Luther
King Jr. 301
33. Is Racial Discrimination Arbitrary? Peter Singer 309
34 . In Defense of Quotas James Rachels 321
35. Homeward Bound Linda Hirshman 336
36. The Case for Open Immigration Michael Huemer 345
BIOETHICS
37. The Morality of Euthanasia James Rachels 348
38. The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia J. Gay-Williams 353
39. The New Eugenics Matt Ridley 358
40 . Human Cloning and the Challenge of Regulation
John A. Robertson 365
41. Selling Organs for Transplantation Lewis Burrows 372
42. A Free Market Would Reduce Donations and Would Commodify
the Human Body James F. Childress 378
James Rachels, the distinguished American moral philosopher, was born in Columbus, Georgia. He graduated from Mercer University in Macon in 1962. He received his PhD in 1967 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He taught at the University of Richmond, New York University, the University of Miami, Duke University, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he spent the last twenty-six years of his career.1971 saw the publication of Rachels’ groundbreaking textbook Moral Problems, which ignited the movement in America away from teaching ethical theory towards teaching concrete practical issues. Moral Problems sold 100,000 copies over three editions. In 1975, Rachels wrote “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” arguing that the distinction so important in the law between killing and letting die has no rational basis. Originally appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, this essay has been reprinted roughly 300 times and is a staple of undergraduate education. The End of Life (1986) was about the morality of killing and the value of life. Created from Animals (1990) argued that a Darwinian world-view has widespread philosophical implications, including drastic implications for our treatment of nonhuman animals. Can Ethics Provide Answers? (1997) was Rachels’ first collection of papers (others are expected posthumously). Rachels’ McGraw-Hill textbook, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, is now in its fourth edition and is easily the best-selling book of its kind.
Over his career, Rachels wrote 5 books and 85 essays, edited 7 books and gave about 275 professional lectures. His work has been translated into Dutch, Italian, Japanese, and Serbo-Croatian. James Rachels is widely admired as a stylist, as his prose is remarkably free of jargon and clutter. A major theme in his work is that reason can resolve difficult moral issues. He has given reasons for moral vegetarianism and animal rights, for affirmative action (including quotas), for the humanitarian use of euthanasia, and for the idea that parents owe as much moral consideration to other people’s children as they do to their own. James Rachels died of cancer on September 5th, 2003, in Birmingham, Alabama.
Stuart Rachels is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama. He has revised several of James Rachels’ books, including Problems from Philosophy (second edition, 2009) and The Right Thing to Do (fifth edition, 2010), which is the companion anthology to this book. Stuart won the United States Chess Championship in 1989 at the age of 20, and he is a Bronze Life Master at bridge. His website is www.jamesrachels.org/stuart.
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