The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory

Building on the strengths of the highly successful first edition, the Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory has been thoroughly reorganized and revised, with the inclusion of an additional five new essays and major modification of nearly all of the remaining essays.

Ranging from moral realism to virtue ethics, this superb volume presents a complete state–of–the–art survey of ethical theory. Written by an international team of leading moral philosophers, each of the 21 papers develops the main tenets, arguments, themes, and problems of the main normative and meta–ethical philosophical outlooks. Essays new to this edition cover evolution and ethics, capability ethics, virtues and consequences, and challenges facing virtue ethics.

This volume is one of the most ambitious and authoritative surveys of ethical theory available today. It serves as a groundbreaking resource as well as a comprehensive guide for both students and scholars alike.

Introduction 1
Hugh LaFollette and Ingmar Persson

Part I Metaethics and Moral Epistemology

1 Moral Realism 17
Michael Smith

2 Relativism 43
Simon Blackburn

3 Moral Agreement 59
Derek Parfit

4 Divine Command Theory 81
Philip L. Quinn

5 Moral Intuition 103
Jeff McMahan

Part II Factual Background of Ethics

6 Ethics and Evolution 123
Richard Joyce

7 Psychological Egoism 148
Elliott Sober

8 The Science of Ethics 169
Ron Mallon and John M. Doris

9 The Relevance of Responsibility to Morality 197
Ingmar Persson

Part III Normative Ethics

10 Act–Utilitarianism 221
R.G. Frey

11 Rule–Consequentialism 238
Brad Hooker

12 Nonconsequentialism 261
F.M. Kamm

13 Intuitionism 287
David McNaughton and Piers Rawling

14 Kantianism 311
Thomas E. Hill Jr

15 Contractarianism 332
Geoffrey Sayre–McCord

16 Rights 354
L.W. Sumner

17 Libertarianism 373
Jan Narveson

18 Virtue Ethics 394
Michael Slote

19 Capability Ethics 412
Ingrid Robeyns

20 Feminist Ethics 433
Alison M. Jaggar

21 Continental Ethics 461
William R. Schroeder

Index 487

Hugh LaFollette is Marie and Leslie E. Cole Chair in Ethics, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He is editor–in–chief of the nine volume International Encyclopedia of Ethics (2013), and author of The Practice of Ethics (Blackwell, 2007) and Personal Relationships: Love, Identity, and Morality (Blackwell, 1995). He is co–author of Brute Science: The Dilemmas of Animal Experimentation (1996), and editor of several other volumes, including Ethics in Practice: An Anthology (third edition, Blackwell, 2007).

Ingmar Persson is Professor of Practical Philosophy, University of Gothenburg, and Distinguished Research Fellow, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. His publications include The Retreat of Reason (2005) and, together with Julian Savulescu, Unfit for the Future: The Need for Moral Enhancement (2012). He is now finishing From Morality to the End of Reason: An Essay on Rights, Reasons and Responsibility.