Ethics: A Very Short Introduction

Elementaire Deeltjes #79

by Simon Blackburn

Very Short Introductions : Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring

Our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures is dogged by scepticism, relativism, hypocrisy, and nihilism, and by the fear that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and tribalistic, or competitive and aggressive. Here, Simon Blackburn tackles the major moral questions surrounding birth, death, happiness, desire, and freedom, showing us how we should think about the meaning of life, and why we should mistrust the soundbite-sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates.

This second edition of the Very Short Introduction on Ethics has revised and updated aspects of the original to reflect changing times and mores. It highlights the importance of an understanding of approaches to ethics and its foundations, confronted as we are with a fluid and uncertain world of eroding trust, swirling conspiracy theories, and a dismaying loss of respect in public discourse.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Ebooks, Audiobook, School, Writing

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Simon Blackburn FBA is an English academic philosopher known for his work in metaethics, where he defends quasi-realism, and in the philosophy of language; more recently, he has gained a large general audience from his efforts to popularise philosophy.

He retired as the professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 2011, but remains a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, teaching every fall semester. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a member of the professoriate of New College of the Humanities. He was previously a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford and has also taught full-time at the University of North Carolina as an Edna J. Koury Professor. He is a former president of the Aristotelian Society, having served the 2009–2010 term. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002 and a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008.

Reviews

[Amirography · Rating 1 out of 5]

I believe, when a scholar is expected to write a book with "Very short Introduction" In its name and is published by Oxford University Press, the earlier mentioned scholar should at least write arguments against thesis he/she had read.

Any scholar (be they are student or professor) would know that Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, not just only not mention "Humans should act egoistically because genes do" rather he emphasized that this just tells how genes function. Not how we are or how we ought to be. Also, I challenge the writer to show any respect full figure in science that directly or indirectly, we should act as our biological history, or other animals. Especially when most zoologists and animal experts show that ethics in most animals are comparable to humans and we are not that many ethicists in comparison.

I would email my criticism to Simon Blackburn about this matter, but apparently, he wouldn't be reading my emails as he has shown to be avoidant about reading scientific literature that might look as though they do not meet his philosophical premises.

I found this book hardly ironic, as I find publishing such a poor written essay, ethically compromising at best.

[Ryan Scicluna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book but as it states in the title it is a very Short introduction. It has a very good starting point for all those willing to start immersing themselves in the philosophy of ethics. However reading this book alone it is not enough. You must read other books about the subject. Here I listed a list of suggested further reading which in this case if you are really interested into the subject you must at least read a couple more books from.

Suggested Further Reading:

Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche
Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong John Mackie
Ethics and the limits of Philosophy Bernard Williams
After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre
Relitivism and Moral Objectivity G.Harman and J.J. Thomson
Moral Relativity David Wong
Women, Culture, and Development Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Glover
Living High and Letting Die Peter Unger
The Limits of Morality Shelly Kagan
Moral Luck Bernard Williams
The Lor dof the Flies William Golding
Babeltower A.S. Byatt
The Problem of Abortion Susan Dwyer and Joel Feinberg
Civilisation and its Discontents Sigmund Freud
Mortal Questions Thomas Nagel
Thinking Clearly about Death Jay Rosenberg
Death, Desire and Loss Jonathan Dollimore
The Morality of Happiness Julia Annas
Utilitatianism John Stuart Mill
Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method and Point R.M. Hare
Nonsense upon Stilts: Bentham, Burke and Marx on the Rights of Man Jeremy Waldron
Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant's Moral Theory Thoams Hill
On Virtu Ethics Posalind Hursthouse
The Evolution of the Social Contract Brian Skyrms
Morals by Agreement David Gauthier
What We Owe to Each Other T.M. Scanlon
The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory Hugh LaFollette
Ethics and Economics Elizabeth Anderson
Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle
An Intorduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Jeremy Bentham
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge Goerge Berkley
Ruling Passions Simon Blackburn
Think Simon Blackburn
Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel Joseph Butler
The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins
The Extant Remains Epicurus
Essential Works of Foucault Michel Foucault
The Phenomenology of Spirit G.W.F. Hegel
The Histories Herodotus
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion David Hume
Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals David Hume
Essays Moral, Political and Literary David Hume
A Treatise of Human Nature David Hume
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Immanuel Kant
Practical Philosophy Immanuel Kant
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke
A System of Logic John Stuart Mill
Basic Writings Friedrich Nietzsche
Euthyphro Plato
Conjectures and Refutations Karl Popper
The Foundations of Mathematics F.P. Ramsey
A Thoery of Justice John Rawls
Practical Ethics Peter Singer
The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith
Jumpers Tom Stoppard
Sources of the Self Charles Taylor
History of he Peloponnesian War Thucydides
The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen
The Mating Season P.G. Wodehouse

[Richard Swan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very poor. Sloppy thinking with, unforgivably, sloppy expression. On p. 3 he says ‘An ethical climate is a different thing from a moralistic one’, but never defines either ethics or morals or the distinction between them. Sentences like ‘The bad news is that we will accord authority to anyone in a white coat’ are patronising and false, while any author who can write ‘it is usually not at all certain that’ should be taken outside and edited.

[Daphne]

DNF @ 70%

I don't consider myself an expert on ethics or super knowledgeable on philosophy in general, but I think I know too much to really enjoy this book. To be fair, this is an introductory text, so I don't blame the author.

The one real critique I have for the book was that it wasn't presented impartially. When the author presented critiques of different ethical theories, he acted like the critiques completely took down the theory and that no sane person would have an opinion that was different from his. I don't know if that was his intention, but he came off as though he was convinced that his opinions were the only correct ones out there.

[Muhamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my opinion, the author did a good job of presenting important ethical discussions (mainly western). However, more than being an overview and a summary, the author presents his own views as the correct ones. One could say that's how it should be. But usually with introductory books I prefer to have the discussions without the author telling us who is right.

[M. Ashraf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ethics
A Very Short Introduction #80
Simon Blackburn

I think it is not an into to Ethics but rather a discussion through some of the ethical and moral questions we may face in our life without getting that deeper into philosophy and without being impartial about some topics.
I find it to be a good book though. I enjoyed reading it.

Human beings are ethical animals. I do not mean that we naturally behave particularly well, nor that we are endlessly telling each other what to do. But we grade and evaluate, and compare and admire, and claim and justify. We do not just ‘prefer’ this or that, in isolation. We prefer that our preferences are shared; we turn them into demands on each other. Events endlessly adjust our sense of responsibility, our guilt and shame, and our sense of our own worth and that of others. We hope for lives whose story leaves us looking admirable; we like our weaknesses to be hidden and deniable. Drama, literature, and poetry all work out ideas of standards of behavior and their consequences.

For many people, ethics is not only tied up with religion but is completely settled by it. Such people do not need to think too much about ethics, because there is an authoritative code of instructions,
a handbook of how to live. It is the word of Heaven or the will of a Being greater than ourselves.

religion is not the foundation of ethics, but its showcase or its symbolic expression.
we drape our own standards with the stories of divine origin as a way of asserting their authority. We do not just have a standard of conduct that forbids, say, murder, but we have mythological historical examples in which God expressed his displeasure at cases of murder.

There are only the different truths of different communities. This is the idea of relativism.

What is just or right in the eyes of one person may not be so in the eyes of another, and neither side can claim real truth, unique truth, for its particular rules.

If we are good, it may be because we were never tempted enough, or frightened enough, or put in
desperate enough need.

[Blake · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has vanquished my hopes in Blackburn's treatment of ethics. The criticism goes not for his brevity, but to his innaccuracy in attempts to properly represent the threats to an objectivist ethics and as well the actual strengths of other moral cognitivisms.

His stated project is to dispel the myths regarding moral philosophy, but in this book he perpetuates them. His statement of moral relativism is what you would expect to find in media bites, not the works of a moral philosopher. Given his stated intention, one would expect him to opt for the explanation over condemnation, but no, he drops a normative thesis (tolerance, of course) into the relativist's mix and in so doing misrepresents not only the relativist's position, but her opponent's in the form of objectivism.

Blackburn is, of course, a meta-ethical quasi-realist, whose semantic theory contains a realist element, but primarily maintains the expressivist thesis. So those expecting him to fairly represent his opponents, in a book aimed at those who are new to moral philosophy and likely to be swayed by his arguments, will be disappointed.

The middle of the book deals with normative ethics and does so in a similar, but slightly more acrid style. Blackburn's normative thesis has some unique features that almost saved the book in my opinion, but framed as they were by a confused promise to set the public understanding of ethics free from the usual kind of misunderstandings and the failure to deliver on that promise (coupled with an apparent joy in that failure) leaves the book's whole project a mess of inconsistent philosophy.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Small little book that summarizes the most prominent ethical theories. As someone who has only recently delved into philosophy I’m not sure if Blackburn’s profiles accurately portray the essence of philosophical theories, but the breadth of this book is adequate for a beginner student of philosophy.

[Reza Khabook · Rating 2 out of 5]

A issue short introduction! Just good for opening your eyes on issues!

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprised how comprehensive this treatment was in this short format

[Aafke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gebrek aan structuur maakte het lastig voor mij om nu te begrijpen waar we heen gingen, ook al is de stof goed te begrijpen. Daarnaast denk ik dat hij beter een boek over David Hume had kunnen schrijven, hij blijkt nogal fan te zijn van diens ideeën, die telkens worden aangehaald als een betere visie op een bepaald ethisch vraagstuk. Nogal een biased introductie van ethiek

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really upset I read the whole thing because it was so bad

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

More an introduction to ethical issues than ethics itself. I listened to this on Audible; it was a mistake. I probably need to read the words to attempt to understand philosophy.

[Jung]

We covered three of the main threats to ethical thinking, and three of the main ethical theories in the Western philosophical tradition. This may have been your first foray into moral philosophy, but by now you know that you’re certainly not new to ethics – you’ve been engaged in an ethical environment your whole life. I hope you feel inspired to set off and explore moral philosophy in greater depth.

---

Ethics, or moral philosophy

Well, we can observe that we’re not born into an ethical vacuum. We essentially inherit deep-rooted preferences about how we ought to live and behave from our surrounding culture. If you grew up in the United States or Europe, for example, you probably came of age in the ethical climate of liberal individualism, and thereby absorbed some very specific notions about freedom that are different to other parts of the world. These inherited ideas about freedom shape everyone’s thinking and values, no matter where they lie on the political spectrum.

But just because we inherit ethical preferences doesn’t mean that our values are completely determined by the ethical climate in which we find ourselves. We also have the power to reflect on and influence that ethical climate. Ethical concerns are essentially preferences about how we should treat each other. These preferences obviously don’t align with those of everyone we encounter. And so: we debate, we critique, or use brute will to shape our ethical environments according to our vision. And when we turn our ethical preferences into formal demands of each other, that’s what you’d call a law.

Our ethical environments are so fundamental to our lives that sometimes they become invisible. But we should be careful to not take our societies’ ethical climate for granted, and think through our ethical commitments carefully. After all, many of humanity’s most atrocious deeds were the product of a distorted ethical climate. You could even say that the roads to concentration camps and sweatshops were paved with ethical judgments gone terribly awry.

Thinking through our ethical commitments and keeping others accountable is what moral philosophy is all about. It’s an academic tradition over two thousand years old, and continues to be a widely influential and highly active branch of contemporary philosophy. But ethics is hardly just the domain of academic theorists. All kinds of people have the power – and perhaps responsibility – to shape the moral climate! Just think about the Vietnam War as an example. Photo journalists who chronicled the devastating realities of the Vietnam War shaped public opinion far more than any professional philosopher writing on the topic.

Still, moral philosophy matters a great deal and is applicable to all humans, because it helps us examine the ethical concerns that matter so much to us at a deep and very precise level. So, even if you didn’t study philosophy in school, ethics is still worth learning about, because it’s here that you’ll find the tools to think critically about right and wrong, and learn to live a more ethical life.

The thing is, ethics doesn’t have the best reputation. Even if we can acknowledge that ethics is important, it’s not always something we like to think about. It’s thorny, disturbing, and complicated.

For one thing, the right course of action isn’t always obvious. It’s not like the world offers signposts for how we ought to live and behave. And, when it comes to hot-topic issues like abortion, people’s ethical judgments are notoriously clouded by emotion.

Another reason ethics can be unpleasant to think about is that ethical concerns threaten our comfort levels if we benefit from the status quo. I mean, how would you like it if I pointed out that there’s a good chance you’re listening to this on a device produced under highly exploitative conditions, possibly even using the labor of enslaved children?

Maybe you would get defensive and throw the accusation back at me by asking if my recording device is uncompromised. Or you might argue that individuals are embedded in unjust social structures that we can’t control, so it’s not fair to moralize about someone’s individual consumer choices. Or, if you really prefer to not think about it, you might dismiss me out of hand as a buzzkill or a pessimist. All of these responses are attempts at evading ethical thinking, which is just another way of evading ethical responsibility.

There are a whole host of threats to ethical thinking like these, and Simon Blackburn devotes nearly half of his book to skewering them. Because if every time you encounter a difficult moral problem you just throw up your hands and claim that it’s all hopeless, you’re effectively saying that trying to do good is just for suckers, and that ethics is just a sham!

But that would be too easy. That’d be letting ourselves off the hook. And worst of all: it sets us up to be terrible people.

So, if we’re not ready to give up on ethics, we need to identify the threats and understand the erroneous thinking behind them. Then we’ll be well-equipped to cut through the bullshit and do the hard but also crucially important work of treating each other well. So, let’s go through those threats.

---

Three threats to ethics

Three of the most widespread threats you’ll encounter are: a godless world, relativism, and the belief that humans are fundamentally selfish creatures.

First off, there’s a common threat to ethics that’s often called the Death of God. This refers to the fact that much of the world – particularly in the West – has become secularized.

Most of us now live in societies that are no longer dominated by one religion and one corresponding set of moral codes. In short, God is dead, and his rulebook has been buried with him. Many people view this as a fundamental challenge to ethics because there’s no longer any ultimate authority to enforce moral rules. As the very devout Dostoyevksy once said, “If God is dead, everything is permitted.” In other words, the perceived threat to ethics is that if not enough people believe that there is a lawgiver, there can be no law.

Let’s take a somewhat silly hypothetical example. Say that I believe anyone who steals yogurt from the office fridge will burn in hell, but my coworkers don’t believe in any kind of afterlife. If that’s the case, what’s to stop them from helping themselves? And how could I ever trust anyone not to? The break-room fridge becomes a lawless free-for-all.

Regardless of whether you believe in God or not, Blackburn claims that it shouldn’t matter for participating in an ethical environment. We don’t need to look to a supernatural authority to ground our moral principles – we’re quite capable of establishing moral principles among ourselves. That’s why we have laws, and rights, and courtrooms. We didn’t need a god to establish a 30-miles-per-hour speed limit, so why would we need a god to establish other moral laws?

So, theoretically a shared ethical environment (or a shared office fridge) can exist between Christians, atheists, Pastafarians, and all the rest. We don’t need one supernatural authority to hold it all together.

Of course, this raises the question of just how we can all settle on a shared ethical code if we’re coming from such radically different perspectives. The question of finding a shared, universal foundation to ethics has vexed philosophers for millennia – and this takes us right to the second major threat to ethics: the threat posed by relativism. That is, something that seems right in the eyes of one person might appear reprehensible in the eyes of another. Who’s to say who’s right? Is ethics just everyone thumping at the table and insisting on their own preferences? Or can we base our commitments on something more substantial?

The relativist position can basically be summed up by people shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Welp, that’s just your opinion!” By pointing out that there’s no universally accepted ethical truth, relativists think they’re making an argument, but all they’re really doing is imposing a conversation-stopper onto any well-intended ethical conversation.

But here’s the thing: if you spend enough time around relativists, you’ll start to notice something. They can be quick to point out that your ethical preference is only an opinion when it’s something they disagree with or aren’t interested in. But when it comes to an ethical commitment closer to their hearts – whether it’s privacy or child abuse or anything that they find important – those same relativists are inclined to make passionate arguments about their pet ethical preferences.

The point is, humans are always going to have ethical commitments, whether those commitments are universal or not. Sometimes, those ethical commitments come into conflict – if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have any need for politics.

A dash of relativism can actually be useful in such an instance. It’s not only a conversation-stopper. Relativism can help us to imagine another person’s point of view or to approach hot button topics with a cool head. And it increases our capacity for tolerance and our willingness to compromise. But what’s not helpful is using relativism as an excuse to not bother engaging with others at all.

Let’s say, for instance, that my wife wants to let guests smoke in the house, and I’m not okay with that. Should I give up on the relationship just because she’s, ahem, in the wrong? No! I love my wife! And I also want to have guests over. So, it’s important that we talk about our preferences and come up with a compromise that we can both live with. And if it means that in the end I have to hold my nose and let guests hang their cigarettes out the window, then so be it. We don’t need to divorce over a cigarette.

Relativism makes ethics complicated, but not impossible. Just because there’s no one universally accepted ethical truth, that doesn’t mean we’re doomed to a dog-eat-dog world.



Speaking of animals eating each other, this brings us to the third major threat to ethics – the idea that humans are fundamentally selfish creatures and that we’ve evolved to be this way. The idea behind this threat is that when humans claim to care about ethical concerns, this is really just a self-righteous cover for what is in fact their own selfish agenda.

In a nutshell, this challenge to ethics puts forth that we’re “programmed” to perpetuate the species, and any behavior can be interpreted as an expression of this drive. They think that we shouldn’t get too precious about our seemingly nicer qualities, like parental love or altruism, because they’re just traits that have been selected for the propagation of our species and for the spread of our genetic material. Any so-called ethical action is really just a highfalutin fig leaf for the relentless drive of evolution. Altruistic tendencies evolved only because they’re evolutionarily advantageous – all of our actions are for the sake of sex or survival.

However, even though this is a widely-held belief, it’s quite a limited understanding of human nature.

Just think about it: people sacrifice their own self-interest in the name of other values all the time. Parents make sacrifices for their kids; people give their lives for what they perceive to be higher callings.

Even if you insist that any action or preference necessarily has a selfish, survival-enhancing drive underlying it, and that a “pure” form of altruism couldn’t possibly exist, it’s easy to see that ethical activity still has an evolutionary function. We’re all trying to live in a society, right? Principled, altruistic, and unselfish behavior is admired and rewarded in social environments. Ethical activity arguably leads to higher survival chances, so it’s a worthwhile pursuit for that reason alone.

Either way, it’s pretty reductive and paints humanity with far too broad a brush to say that we’re fundamentally selfish – so don’t fall prey to this cynical myth. Sure, we’re selfish creatures. But we’re not only selfish. We’re ethical, too!

---

Three ethical theories

So, we’ve covered some of the main objections to ethics. I hope you’re feeling confident that acting morally is indeed within our sphere of possibility, and that the voice of conscience isn’t just a delusion.

But, even if we’re convinced that pursuing ethical action is both possible and worthwhile, you don’t need me to tell you that being good isn’t always easy. It’s not just that it’s fun to be bad – it’s also often tricky to determine what the right thing to do even is. Moral ambiguity is everywhere!

That’s where moral philosophy comes into play. A moral philosophy is like a roadmap for determining both our individual ethical obligations on the one hand and the norms and laws that structure our societies on the other.

There are basically three main types of ethical theory: deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics.

Let’s start with deontology. This is an ethical theory that uses rules to determine whether an action is right or wrong. It’s a way of thinking about ethics that emphasizes our duty to follow universal moral rules that apply equally to everyone. One example of a deontologist would be a person who lives their life according to the Ten Commandments.

The most famous deontologist, however, was strictly secular. German philosopher Immanuel Kant grounded his theory of ethics in reason rather than divine authority. The core of his moral philosophy was what he called the categorical imperative, which is kind of similar to the golden rule found in many religions, and that we all learn in kindergarten – treat others as you want to be treated. In a nutshell, the categorical imperative demands that one should only ever act according to maxims that could be made into universal laws.

Let’s unpack that a bit. We can start to think about the categorical imperative with a mental exercise called the universalization test. That is, if you’re ever unsure about whether a choice you’re about to make is ethical, you can ask yourself, “What if everybody did that?” If the answer is, “Not so great!” – that tells you that the action probably shouldn't be done. This test is very helpful for recognizing when you’re trying to exempt yourself from conduct that you would otherwise expect or hope from other people.

When formulating the categorical imperative, as Blackburn puts it, “Kant took the universalization test and ran with it.” For Kant, it’s not just a device that helps you think twice before a difficult decision – it’s actually the foundation of all ethical action, that actions should be in accordance with universal principles.

So is the categorical imperative just a dustier name for the good old golden rule? Is it just a drier repackaging of do unto others as you would have them do unto you? Not quite. The categorical imperative is stricter. Kant pointed out that the golden rule leaves room for injustice, and that something with more meat was needed to guide all of our ethical activity. Say you’re a judge about to sentence a violent murderer. If the murderer were to throw the golden rule at you in the courtroom, then you’d be inclined to give him a short sentence, because wouldn’t you want to be treated that way? But if you followed the categorical imperative rather than the golden rule, then you would be bound by duty to give the murderer a fair sentence in proportion to his atrocious crimes.

It’s important to stress that for Kant, and for deontologists in general, the moral laws are considered absolute, which means they apply to everyone equally and in all instances. Kant believed that any wiggle room for interpretation of a law would undermine the ethical system by opening up a space for subjective errors in judgment. That’s why moral laws have to be simple and rigid.

Say the moral law states “Do not lie.” Under a deontological system, it’s not enough to simply be guided by the rule not to lie; rather we’re bound by duty never to lie under any circumstance. No exceptions.

Now, on the one hand, a major benefit of a deontological approach to ethics is that it simplifies our moral decisions by providing us with clear-cut rules for behavior. You don’t have to weigh the costs and benefits of every situation; you just follow the rule.

But, on the other hand, it does seem like there are clear instances where lying really is the right thing to do. Consider this classic example: If you were facing an axe murderer who demanded to know where your children are hiding, would it be wrong to lie? According to Kant, yes – it would be wrong to lie to the axe murderer. He wrote a whole scathing book about why, if you’re curious to dig deeper!

For those of you who find deontology too rigid, there’s another theory of ethics that might speak to you more. It’s called consequentialism, and, as the name suggests, it’s the theory that determines whether an action is right or wrong by looking to its consequences. It’s what people are talking about when they say that the ends justify the means.

If deontology is a moral system based on following rules, then consequentialism is focused on future results. One famous form of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which judges an action based on whether or not it improves the general well-being. A course of action is considered good if it’s the one that brings about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. That means an action that might in itself seem terrible, such as ending a life or starting a war, can be justified if it leads to an overall social benefit.

Utilitarianism has many strengths. It was ushered in by social reformers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and laid the foundation for a new era of egalitarianism and impartiality. Utilitarianism holds that overall happiness is the sum total of everyone’s individual happiness-es coming together, where each person’s happiness is worth the same as anyone else’s. (This was quite controversial in the 1700s!) It’s an idea that’s done a lot for social welfare, by providing a theoretical justification for policies that promote overall health and well-being.

Now, utilitarianism has its fair share of critics, too. After all, if the happiness of the majority is the supreme good in society, that might not bode well for minorities. Suppose that enslaving a small group of people were to bring the majority even just a bit more happiness; this would be considered good under simple utilitarianism. A utilitarian has to be deaf to the cry of some individuals if it means the masses are relatively happy. But many people find it unjustifiable to sacrifice individuals in an attempt to promote overall happiness. And, if that’s how you feel, you migh

[Juan "El más guapo" Esteban · Rating 3 out of 5]

Debería llamarse: “Una breve introducción a *mi* ética, para progresistas ateos que quieran dar por sentado su propio sistema de valores”. Mucho de lo que dice es basura y justifica solo lo que le interesa, pero no escribe mal y el libro no es una completa perdida de tiempo. Ahora, el propósito del libro lo cumple a medias y como le da la gana.

[Mahdieh Ebrahimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

به نظرم کتاب خیلی خوبی بود و بخش‌های مختلفش بسیار آموزنده بود به خصوص بحث آخر کتاب رو در مورد مسئله سقط جنین رو خیلی دوست داشتم و دیدگاه اخلاقی مسئله رو خیلی خوب نقل کرده بود.

[Adam Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love these short introductions, but their space limitations are obvious, so that take that into account in this review. I am particularly educated in the Christian ethical tradition, so I was somewhat frustrated that Blackburn rejected religiously founded ethics quite glibly in the first section, with largely straw-man critique, but this is forgivable as it is not the author's perspective. With deity based ethics dismissed, he leads readers through possible retorts that this undermines ethical foundations thus allowing all ethical perspectives to stand equally valid; his format that took these concerns on straightforwardly were the principle reason I was interested in this work, even more so than his thoughts on nihilism. He dismissed the relativism critique rather shorthandly since he has an entire section on foundations to close the book. This was where I was expecting to find some meat to justify the dismissal of religious ethics and its accompanying concerns of moral relativism, but I was a bit disappointed. His short summaries of Kant and Rawls' attempts to ground ethics rationally are commendable, though he acknowledges that they still seem to come up short. In the end, he seems to argue that there is enough in common humanity to ground ethics reasonably, if not Reasonably. I struggled to get an answer for how ethical disputes might be settled reasonably if different groups have competing conceptions of what is "good." This to me is a key question of ethics, how can we make judgments about what is right or good that can be backed by more than our social or violent power to enforce them? Blackburn argues that humanity largely agrees on such "unpretentious things" as "Happiness is preferable to misery, and dignity is better than humiliation. It is bad that people suffer, and worse if a culture turns a blind eye to their suffering. Death is worse than life; the attempt to find a common point of view is better than manipulative contempt for it." I think only recently of popular American debates about torture, and it does not seem at all clear that American humans (much less a wider sampling of human cultures) can agree on several of these things. And if humanity did have some kind of mysterious common moral center as Blackburn seems to believe, wouldn't that open up a whole other set of metaphysical questions about how/why this came to be or what it might be in the future? Overall, not a bad "short introduction," he does hit several hot button ethical issues like abortion and violence, and covers a number of important names in ethics such as Aristotle, Hume, Locke, and Rawls. As Christian and a historian, I'd like to have seen some engagement with folks like Augustine and Aquinas, who have profound influence in the Western tradition whether one agrees or not, but again, it's a short introduction so cuts must be made.

[Arno Mosikyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps fewer of us are sensitive to what we might call the moral or ethical environment. This is the surrounding climate of ideas about how to live.

An idea in this sense is a tendency to accept routes of thought and feeling that we may not recognize in ourselves, or even be able to articulate. Yet such dispositions rule the social and political world.

An ethical climate is a different thing from a moralistic one. Indeed, one of the marks of an ethical climate may be hostility to moralizing, which is somehow out of place or bad form. Thinking that will itself be a something that affects the way we live our lives. So, for instance, one peculiarity of our present climate is that we care much more about our rights than about our ‘good’.

Human beings are ethical animals. I do not mean that we naturally behave particularly well, nor that we are endlessly telling each other what to do. But we grade and evaluate, and compare and admire, and claim and justify.

For many people, ethics is not only tied up with religion, but is completely settled by it. Such people do not need to think too much about ethics, because there is an authoritative code of instructions, a handbook of how to live.

The detour through an external god, then, seems worse than irrelevant. It seems to distort the very idea of a standard of conduct. As the moral philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1824) put it, it encourages us to act in accordance with a rule, but only because of fear of punishment or some other incentive; whereas what we really want is for people to act out of respect for a rule. This is what true virtue requires.

The alternative suggested by Plato’s dialogue is that religion gives a mythical clothing and mythical authority to a morality that is just there to begin with.

In this analysis, religion is not the foundation of ethics, but its showcase or its symbolic expression.

Religion on this account is not the source of standards of behaviour, but a projection of them, made precisely in order to dress them up with an absolute authority.

The ‘freshman relativist’ is a nightmare figure of introductory classes in ethics, rather like the village atheist (but what’s so good about village theism?).

If everybody needs the rule that there should be some rule, that itself represents a universal standard. It can then be suggested that the core of ethics is universal in just this way.

For human beings, there is no living without standards of living.

We are egoists, altruism doesn’t exist, ethics is only a fig-leaf for selfish strategies, we are all conditioned, women are nurturing, men are rapists, we care above all for our genes.

The core of morality, then, lies not in what we do, but in our motives in doing it: ‘When moral worth is at issue, what counts is not actions, which one sees, but those inner principles of action that one does not see.

[Shazzan Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to note, for those of you who are not aware, that Ethics: A Very Short Introduction is pretty much the same as Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics.
This book is divided into three major sections and a total of twenty-one chapters.
In the first section, Blackburn considers some threats to or misconceptions of ethics. The topics discussed included religious morality, relativism, evolutionary ethics. According to Blackburn, these concepts either misrepresent ethics or they seem to suggest that ethics is impossible. Perhaps the most interesting part in this section, for me at least, was the letter to 'Dr. Laura'
In the second section, Blackburn seems to have selected an arbitrary list of ethical ideas and issues to discusses. Here ideas discussed included abortion, murder, utilitarianism ('greatest happiness of the greatest number'). In this section, his discussion on natural rights and what does it mean to have natural rights was very engaging.
The final section was spent on some of the foundations of ethics various philosophers have come up with in the past. The ideas discussed in this section were Aristotle's virtue ethics, Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, and John Rawls "Justice as Fairness."
This book is a very brief and concise look at some of the major themes and issues concerning ethics in philosophy. It devotes a lot of space to practical and pressing issues. I decided to give it four stars because it had a certain lack of coherence and structure. It was hard to grasp the big idea or theme from each section.
Regardless, I would certainly recommend this book to others.

[Zaid Zain · Rating 2 out of 5]

2021 #5

Ethics, A Very Short Introduction
Simon Blackburn

Who this book is for: For people who want to get to know more about ethics, from the perspective of Western philosophy.

Why am I reading this book?: To try to better understand the core module subject I'm taking.

What I like about the book: Part One: The Seven Threats to Ethics

What I don't like about the book: Unlike the other books in the VSI series, this one would require some background knowledge in the topic before delving into it. In that sense, this is not a suitable introductory book, IMO.

Will I read this again?: Maybe. Some topics discussed are timeless and contemporary, may require a reread some time in the future.

Rating: 2/5 Don't buy, just borrow from the library. Thank fully mine is a library copy.

[Beatriz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não estava à espera que esta leitura me agradasse. Comecei a ler a introdução à ética de Blackburn sem expectativas, mas acabei por gostar da organização do livro e de como o autor coloca em análise questões do dia-a-dia, sob o escrutínio de teorias de pensadores muito afamados.
Na verdade, qualquer leitor que tenha estudado Filosofia na escola já terá conhecimento da maioria dos conteúdos expostos. O que é, de facto, mais relevante, aquilo que devo destacar é a capacidade de sintetização e compilação de Blackburn.
O ponto mais fraco que tenho a apontar acerca desta introdução à ética é o ocasional devaneio do autor, o que me deixou algumas vezes a pensar "mas o que é que isto tem que ver com o assunto?".
Recomendo o livro a novos alunos de ciências sociais ou humanas.

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come, possibly.

Or, briefly, one of the commanders on base saw me reading On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century and wanted a trade. I'm flattered and happy because it's nice that someone supports my nerdy endevours durng guard duty.

The thing is, I like to think I'm not a beginner and as such, I feel comfortable to criticize and say that it's a basic book, it doesn't devlve deep enough into the ethical issues and I feel like I'm not getting the whole picture.

All in all, a nice read but not much more.

[Ariel Pontes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book presents interesting contemporary ethical debates and how they relate to some more theoretical philosophical ideas. Although I appreciate this type of approach in principle, in the case of this book it was extremely chaotic. The subjects were approached without any meaningful order, and a plethora of subjects and concepts were scratched superficially without ever giving the sensation that a conclusion was reached or that the core ideas of a theory were presented in a coherent way. It felt like a long rant about the issues of today. Sometimes it was interesting, but I expected a lot more structure from a book in this series.

[ياسمين خليفة · Rating 3 out of 5]

مقدمة صغيرة عن الاخلاق كتاب من اصدار اكسفورد من السلسلة الشهيرة very short introduction
الكتاب لم يتحدث فقط عن الاخلاق وتعريفها ولكنه فتح موضوعات كثيرة عن الحرية وحقوق الانسان والدين مستعينا بفلاسفة كثيرين منهم أرسطو وهيوم وهيجل موضوع الاخلاق معقد وكانت هناك بعض الفقرات صعبة بالنسبة لي ولم يعجبني هجوم الكاتب على الأديان واستهانته بها ولكن الجانب الايجابي من الكتاب هو انه حثني على التفكير في الموضوعات التي طرحها كما حثني على قراءة أعمال الفلاسفة القدماء

[Arcadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very concise and accessible introduction to Ethics (spoiler). I enjoyed the arguments of the book more and more as it progressed, however I felt that it was kind of just giving names to moral dilemmas that are already obviously present in day to day life. Might read Kant, ya que Simon Blackburn seems to be such a fan. Thanks Kilius for the recommendation :) It was a good taste of what these intellectual debates include.

[Billie Cotterman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got to page 50 before stopping. This isn't an introduction to Ethics so much as a discussion of problems within ethics. There's no actual introduction to the field of ethics or what ethics even means. Maybe this would be more interesting if I were familiar with the field, but it really just reads like someone's rant. I can't tell what is the author's opinion and what is actual established practice in the field.

[Helga · Rating 2 out of 5]

too unstructured and sloppy for a complete beginner, too glib and superficial if you have any background in the topic

also I bristled at the out-of-touch, upper class british vibe; e.g. he describes the legacy of colonialism as "embarrassing." (must be hard for you, sweaty!) and he claims that workers advocating for "aggressive" wage rises is self-interested in the way that overfishing is.

he has some good zingers & interesting examples, though

[Crackers · Rating 2 out of 5]

"No god wrote the laws of good behavior into the cosmos. Nature has no concern for good or bad, right or wrong."

[Rahell Omer]

ئەگەر سیمیناری کۆممیونیتی مێدیسن نەدەبوو!

[Rashid Saif · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written and encompassing book. I wish for the cognitive/neuroscience evolutionary dweebs out there who pontificate on ethics to read this book.