Applied Ethics: A Non-Consequentialist Approach

by David S. Oderberg

Applied Ethics focuses the central concepts of traditional morality - rights, justice, the good, virtue, and the fundamental value of human life - on a number of pressing contemporary problems, including abortion, euthanasia, animals, capital punishment, and war.

Genres: Philosophy

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Gregory Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Fr. John Clark]

Substantially better than its sister text “Moral Theory.”