Em Ética Aplicada, bem como em Teoria Moral, David Oderberg começa por expor, para em seguida aplicar, ideias tão antigas como a da inviolabilidade da vida humana. A apresentação é clara e a argumentação vigorosa. Tanto os estudantes, como o público em geral, ficam em dívida para com o autor.
Professor David Simon Oderberg (born 1963) is an Australian philosopher of metaphysics and ethics based in Britain since 1987. He is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading.
Many books on applied ethics take a consequentialist (utilitarian) approach, seeing the morality of an action entirely in terms of its consequences, as though the end justifies the means. Oderberg takes a natural law approach, recognizing that there are inviolable moral principles and that some acts are never right no matter what their results. Oderberg considers four issues in applied ethics: abortion (which, according to his argument, is always wrong), euthanasia (always wrong), animal rights (less than human rights), capital punishment (sometimes right), war (sometimes just).
The theoretical basis of natural law, which is grounded in human nature, is explained in the companion book Moral Theory. Nevertheless, Applied Ethics stands well on its own. The arguments are clear and plausible and should be intelligible to the general reader (i.e., not a specialist in philosophy). They are purely philosophical, i.e., not dependent on any religious dogma or revelation. The book is a breath of fresh air in a topic that has been dominated for too long by consequentialist moralists.