The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread to discuss the "philosophy of ethics and the study of ethics". We can also discuss here "real world ethics, ethical behavior or not".

"Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.

The term comes from the Greek word ethos, which means "character". Ethics is a complement to Aesthetics in the philosophy field of Axiology. In philosophy, ethics studies the moral behavior in humans and how one should act.

Ethics may be divided into four major areas of study:

Meta-ethics about the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions and how their truth values (if any) may be determined;

Normative ethics, about the practical means of determining a moral course of action;

Applied ethics, about how moral outcomes can be achieved in specific situations;

Descriptive ethics, also known as comparative ethics, is the study of people's beliefs about morality;

Ethics seeks to resolve questions dealing with human morality—concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. (Source and remainder of article: )

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

Jonathan Haidt

Synopsis:

Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.

His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right. He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain, and he explains why conservatives can navigate that map more skillfully than can liberals. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures. But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim—that we are fundamentally groupish. It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation.

Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens? In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding.

His starting point is moral intuition—the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.

He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain, and he explains why conservatives can navigate that map more skillfully than can liberals. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures.

But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim—that we are fundamentally groupish. It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation.

Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues

by Steven M. Cahn (no photo)

Synopsis:

Overview
The most comprehensive collection of its kind, Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues, Third Edition, is organized into three parts, providing instructors with flexibility in designing and teaching a variety of courses in moral philosophy.

The first part, Historical Sources, moves from classical thought (Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and Epictetus) through medieval views (Augustine and Aquinas) to modern theories (Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Kant, Bentham, and Mill), culminating with leading nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers (Nietzsche, James, Dewey, Camus, and Sartre). The second part, Modern Ethical Theory, includes many of the most important essays of the past century. The discussion of utilitarianism, Kantianism, egoism, and relativism continues in the work of major contemporary philosophers (Foot, Brandt, Williams, Wolf, and Nagel). Landmark selections (Moore, Prichard, Ross, Ayer, Stevenson, Hare, Baier, Anscombe, Gauthier, and Harman) reflect concern with moral language and the justification of morality.

The concepts of justice (Rawls) and rights (Feinberg) are explored, as well as recent views on the importance of virtue ethics (Rachels) and an ethic influenced by feminist concerns (Held). In the third part, Contemporary Moral Problems, the readings present the current debates over abortion, euthanasia, famine relief, animal rights, the death penalty, and whether numbers should play a role in making moral decisions.

The third edition expands Part II, Modern Ethical Theory, adding essays by Onora O'Neill, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Allan Gibbard, Nicholas L. Sturgeon, and Martha Nussbaum. Part III, Contemporary Moral Problems, features new essays on abortion by Mary Anne Warren, Don Marquis, and Rosalind Hursthouse; an essay on the death penalty by Stephen Nathanson; and a debate between John M. Taurek and Derek Parfit on when and why one should save from harm a greater rather than a lesser number of people.

The book concludes with an essay by Judith Jarvis Thomson on the trolley problem. Wherever possible, each reading is printed in its entirety.

The Methods of Ethics

by Henry Sidgwick

Synopsis:

The Methods of Ethics is Sidgwick's great systematic treatise on ethics. It's also a central text in the history of philosophy, and it can be understood as the work that initiated contemporary ethical theory in the English-speaking world. Of course, this isn't a work that came out of nowhere. In fact, it's informed by Sidgwick's firm grounding in the history of previous ethical thought. And unlike many great philosophers, what Sidgwick has to say about his intellectual forbears is usually reasonably accurate. (See his Outlines of the History of Ethics for additional evidence of his knowledge--and for an excellent introduction to the history of ethics.)

This book is long; it's detailed; and it aspires to comprehensiveness. Indeed, all of the main areas of philosophical ethics (viz. meta-ethics, normative ethics, and moral psychology) are covered herein. Consequently, it's simply impossible to summarize Sidgwick's argument here. Instead of futilely attempting to do so, I'll simply provide the barest outline of Sidgwick's aims and his results.

According to Sidgwick, there are three fundamental methods of ethics: egoistic hedonism, intuitionism, utilitarianism. He wants to examine the nature and plausiblity of each of these methods. The fundamental principle of egoistic hedonism is that what one ought to do (i.e. what one has most reason to do) is what will maximize one's own net amount of pleasure in the long run. The method of hedonism is the method of determing what one ought to do by accumulating empirical evidence about the consequences of particular actions for one's own happiness. Intuitionism, according to Sidgwick, is the view that we have an ability to discern the rightness and wrongness of actions without drawing on empirical evidence concerning the consequences of those actions. The intuitionist tells us that certain fundamental moral principles are self-evident to all who understand them. And intuitionism, Sidgwick claims, is the method underlying common-sense morality. Finally, the fundamental principle of utilitarianism is that what we ought to do is what will maximize the net amount of pleasure for all sentient beings.

Perhaps the most important conclusion of Sidgwick's book is that the method of intuitionism is swallowed up by utilitarianism. For utilitarianism allows us to explain all the elements of the morality of common sense, elements that Sidgwick discusses at length in his account of intuitionism; and furthermore, the self-evident moral principles at which a reflective intuitionism allows us to arrive are principles from which we can prove the fundamental principle of utilitarianism. This, Sidgwick thinks, eliminates any apparent conflict between these two methods, and it shows that utilitarianism, when properly understood, is consistent with common-sense morality.

But Sidgwick thinks that the relation between utilitarianism and egoistic hedonism remains problematic. The final conclusion of his book is that there is an apparently irreconcilable contradiction in our moral thinking. It seems we have compelling, and perhaps overriding, reasons to do both what is our moral duty and what is in our own interest, but, Sidgwick claims, there is no compelling argument that moral duty and self-interest will always converge. That is, there is no good reason to think that acting morally is always in our self-interest, and this is problematic since both our moral duties and our self-interest place genuine claims on us. Practical thought, then, seems to end up in a fundamental sort of contradiction.

This book is mandatory reading for anyone interested in ethics.
Source - Review from Amazon

The Sovereignty of Good

by Iris Murdoch

Synopsis:

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything - even God.

Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions - and her own conclusions - can be found here.

Justice with Michael Sandel (Lecture series)



Description:Justice is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on public television. Nearly a thousand students pack Harvard's historic Sanders Theatre to hear Michael Sandel, "perhaps the most prominent college professor in America," (Washington Post) talk about justice, equality, democracy, and citizenship.

Link:

Very good

The Nicomachean Ethics

by Aristotle

Synopsis:

A student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great, Aristotle is one of the towering figures in Western thought. A brilliant thinker with wide-ranging interests, he wrote important works in physics, biology, poetry, politics, morality, metaphysics, and ethics.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, which he is said to have dedicated to his son Nicomachus, Aristotle's guiding question is what is the best thing for a human being? His answer is happiness. "Happiness," he wrote, "is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world." But he means not something we feel, not an emotion, but rather an especially good kind of life. Happiness is made up of activities in which we use the best human capacities, both ones that contribute to our flourishing as members of a community, and ones that allow us to engage in god-like contemplation. Contemporary ethical writings on the role and importance of the moral virtues such as courage and justice have drawn inspiration from this work, which also contains important discussions on responsibility, practical reasoning, and on the role of friendship in creating the best life.

Thank you Bryan.

The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics

by Kenan Malik (no photo)

Synopsis:

In this remarkable and groundbreaking book, Kenan Malik explores the history of moral thought as it has developed over three millennia, from Homer’s Greece to Mao’s China, from ancient India to modern America. It tells the stories of the great philosophers, and breathes life into their ideas, while also challenging many of our most cherished moral beliefs.

Engaging and provocative, The Quest for a Moral Compass confronts some of humanity’s deepest questions. Where do values come from? Is God necessary for moral guidance? Are there absolute moral truths? It also brings morality down to earth, showing how, throughout history, social needs and political desires have shaped moral thinking. It is a history of the world told through the history of moral thought, and a history of moral thought that casts new light on global history.

Conscience: A Biography

by Martin van Creveld (no photo)

Synopsis:

Many consider conscience to be one of the most important—if not the fundamental—quality that makes us human, distinguishing us from animals, on one hand, and machines on the other. But what is conscience, exactly? Is it a product of our biological roots, as Darwin thought, or is it a purely social invention? If the latter, how did it come into the world?

In this biography of that most elusive human element, Martin van Creveld explores conscience throughout history, ranging across numerous subjects, from human rights to health to the environment. Along the way he considers the evolution of conscience in its myriad, occasionally strange, and ever-surprising permutations. He examines the Old Testament, which—erroneously, it turns out—is normally seen as the fountainhead from which the Western idea of conscience has sprung. Next, he takes us to meet Antigone, the first person on record to explicitly speak of conscience. We then visit with the philosophers Zeno, Cicero and Seneca; with Christian thinkers such as Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, and, above all, Martin Luther; as well as modern intellectual giants such as Machiavelli, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud. Individual chapters are devoted to Japan, China, and even the Nazis, as well as the most recent discoveries in robotics and neuroscience and how they have contributed to the ways we think about our own morality. Ultimately, van Creveld shows that conscience remains as elusive as ever, a continuously mysterious voice that guides how we think about right and wrong.

Jerome wrote: "Conscience: A Biography

by Martin van Creveld (no photo)

Synopsis:

Many consider conscience to be one of the most important—if not th..."

Don't take me wrong, but I guess this is a bit off-topic.

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

by Immanuel Kant

Synopsis:

Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals ranks alongside Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as one of the most profound and influential works in moral philosophy ever written. In Kant's own words its aim is to search for and establish the supreme principle of morality, the categorical imperative.

A book by the most famous utilitarian.

Utilitarianism

by John Stuart Mill

Synopsis:

This expanded edition of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism includes the text of his 1868 speech to the British House of Commons defending the use of capital punishment in cases of aggravated murder. The speech is significant both because its topic remains timely and because its arguments illustrate the applicability of the principle of utility to questions of large-scale social policy.

A work by one of the most influential utilitarian philosophers. By the way, his auto-icon can still be seen at the University College London.

Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

by Jeremy Bentham

Synopsis:

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislations, Jeremy Bentham's best-known work, is a classic text in modern philosophy and jurisprudence. First published in 1789, it contains the important statement of the foundations of utilitarian philosophy and a pioneering study of crime and punishment, both of which remain at the heart of contemporary debates in moral and political philosophy, economics, and legal theory. A new introduction by the leading Bentham scholar F. Rosen, specially written for this edition, provides students with a helpful survey of Bentham's main ideas and an extensive bibliographical study of recent critical work on Bentham.

Jose and Jerome:

@Jerome - it is fine that you added the book on conscience to this thread since conscience is a segment of normative ethics.

@Jose - thank you as well for your adds but Jerome's add is not off-topic. Your conscience can in fact determine a moral course of action.