Ethics and Moral Philosophy

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Modern moral philosophy again: isolating the promulgation problem. 3. Ethics and the perfect moral law. 4. Moral uncertainty and the principle of equity among moral theories. 5. Are moral values invented or discovered. 6. Greek ethics and moral theory. 7. Three trends in moral and political philosophy. 8. The effect of situation ethics upon moral values. 9. Validity of moral norms: perspectives of philosophy and psychoanalysis. 10. Perspectives in moral philosophy. 11. Global security and the role of ethics and values. 12. How ethics and moral philosophy are taught at leading English speaking. 13. Problems of moral philosophy. 14. The ethics of rationing and the value of time. 15. Kant and contemporary moral philosophy. 16. Moral philosophy and mental representation. Bibliography. Index.

The field of ethics or moral philosophy involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves.