Morality and the Good Life

This is an interesting anthology, and a useful one. Many of the papers (or book excerpts) included here have been extremely influential; nearly all them are interesting and stimulating; and they're all worthy of serious study. So this is an anthology that is worth having--though I'm not sure it's worth the full retail price. The book is divided into six sections, each on a distinct topic. The first topic is the nature of moral goodness (and, in particular, of the language we use to talk about moral goodness), and it includes both cognitivist and noncognitivist accounts. Indeed, the section centers around the debate between cognitivists and noncognitivists. And the selections included are all from heavy hitters: Moore, Firth, Ross, and Foot defend cognitivism (Foot and Ross by criticizing the forms of noncognitivism on display here), while Ayer, Hare, and Gibbard defend noncognitivism. The second topic is theories about what constitutes a good human life, and it includes readings on the three major views here--hedonism, desire-satisfaction theories, and objectivism. The topic of the third section is virtue ethics, and it includes classic work by Anscombe, Foot, and MacIntyre. The fourth is moral realism vs. moral anti-realism. This section begins with J. L. Mackie's classic defense of an error-theoretic account of morality, and it includes a non-naturalist realist response from John McDowell and a noncognitivist response from Simon Blackburn. It ends with Nicholas Sturgeon's defense of a naturalist form of realism in his "Moral Explanations," though, for whatever reason, the editors didn't include the work of Gilbert Harman's to which Sturgeon is explicitly responding in this paper. (Still, Sturgeon probably explains Harman's points well enough for this paper to be understandable even if one hasn't already read Harman.) The fifth topic is normative ethics, and this section includes readings on various types of consequentialism (e.g. Moore's ideal utilitarianism and Smart's act utilitarianism), on Ross's deontological theory, and a selection from Robert Adams on the divine command theory. Finally, there is a section on the meaning of life. But, honestly, I cannot understand what the unifying theme of this anthology is. It seems there isn't one. As this summary should reveal, the emphasis here isn't on contemporary discussions. For the readings come from much of the twentieth-century literature. Nor is the emphasis on meta-ethics as opposed to normative ethics, as this includes sections on virtue ethics. The authors describe it as a general anthology introducing ethical thinking in twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy, and that seems to be as good a description as any I can think of.I suppose the only real problem with having such a broad subject matter if that the coverage of particular issues is not as comprehensive as it could be. There are thirty-four readings here, and they are intended to cover most of the major

This is a very good text for an advanced ethics class. I used it at the undergraduate level and was very challenged. The reading can be difficult, but after navigation through the terminology and jargon, useful life skills may be aquired.