Understanding Ethics

by Torbjörn Tännsjö

How can we find true or reasonable moral principles to live our everyday lives by? Torbjörn Tännsjö presents 7 radically different moral theories - utilitarianism, egoism, deontological ethics, the ethics of rights, virtue ethics, feminist ethics, environmental or ecological ethics - each of which attempts to provide the ultimate answer to the question of what we ought to do and why. He carefully describes each theory, showing how it works in practice using the ‘trolley problem’ thought experiments, critically assessing it and putting it into its historical perspective. This third edition contains a new section on population ethics in the chapter on utilitarianism, discusses the impact of recent findings in social psychology on virtue ethics and includes new, clearer applications of the trolley problem.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2003

Reviews

[Shea Levy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Came to this book to get a better sense of the intellectual landscape of ethical philosophy but gave up after 2 chapters. The methodology given in the intro (come up with a theory, apply it to various cases until we find a conflict with our intuitions, revise, rinse, repeat) was worrying enough, but the first two chapters at least didn't even follow that. Instead, Tännsjö just haphazardly throws a small handful of positions and arguments together with unsupported assertions about their reasonableness, leaving me feeling like I knew just as much about utilitarianism and egoism (the two chapters I read) afterward as I had at first, despite completely lacking any formal philosophical education.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, simple, and highly readable intro to ethical philosophy
My only complaint is that feminist ethics is tacked on the end and dispensed with slightly summarily, but that appears to be standard practice - and Tannsjo is a self-declared utilitarian, so at least he comes clean about his motives!

[Rose Locke · Rating 3 out of 5]

read for class

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stopped after several chapters. I need a more careful methodology, an attempt to be precise and systematic. Too many assertions, almost no primary source excerpts. Moving on to a new text for my ethics reading with Shea.