The Right Thing To Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy 7th Edition by James Rachels, ISBN-13: 978-0078119088

Description

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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