Abstract

Attfield’s ethics textbook is a key resource for students of ethics, and covers history of ethics, value-theory, normative ethics, applied ethics, meta-ethics and free-will. Historical sections are used to explain how stances like virtue ethics and consequentialism came to unfold, and issues of human responsibility to be debated. Theories of value as supplying reasons for action inform the study of both normative ethics and meta-ethics. Normative theories are applied to sustainability, medicine, treatment of animals and the environment, development, and the ethics of war. The companion website will assist instructors and students alike, particularly with more challenging topics such as meta-ethics.

Highlights

  • This book (Attfield, 2012) covers the whole field of ethics in outline and six specific areas in particular: history of ethics, value-theory, normative ethics, applied ethics, meta-ethics, and issues surrounding responsibility and free-will

  • It pays more attention to the analytical tradition in all its varieties than to the approaches of continental ethicists, but this probably enhances its clarity and accessibility. (Attfield has previously written weightier and more comprehensive works on ethics, including Value, Obligation and Meta-Ethics (Attfield, 1995), to which frequent cross-references are made in this book for readers seeking greater breadth or depth of coverage; and that book remains available from its original publishers, Rodopi of Amsterdam.) Instead of claiming encyclopedia-like coverage, Ethics: An Overview focuses on stimulating and ongoing debates, especially ones in applied ethics, and at the same time provides a good grounding in normative ethical principles and virtues, and in their status and basis

  • The third chapter on Normative Ethics applies what has emerged in the second chapter about value to issues of moral standing, right action and rights. This is where we find discussions of deontology, contractarianism and, as already mentioned, consequentialism, and where the strengths and weaknesses of virtue ethics emerge

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Summary

John Clutterbuck

Received October 11th, 2013; revised November 11th, 2013; accepted November 18th, 2013. Attfield’s ethics textbook is a key resource for students of ethics, and covers history of ethics, value-theory, normative ethics, applied ethics, meta-ethics and free-will. Historical sections are used to explain how stances like virtue ethics and consequentialism came to unfold, and issues of human responsibility to be debated. Theories of value as supplying reasons for action inform the study of both normative ethics and meta-ethics. Normative theories are applied to sustainability, medicine, treatment of animals and the environment, development, and the ethics of war. The companion website will assist instructors and students alike, with more challenging topics such as meta-ethics

Introduction
How the Arguments Unfold
What the Companion Website Adds
Conclusion
Full Text
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