Author(s): Dave Robinson (illus Chris Garratt)

Philosophy, Politics & Current Affairs

Introducing Ethics traces the arguments of the great moral thinkers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Kant and others, and brings us up to date with postmodern critics. Ethics has become the burning issue of current moral philosophical thought. This is because it raises the spectre of responsibility at a time when responsibility seems entirely replaced by uncertainty and relativism. What is the place of individual choice and consequence in a post-Holocaust world of continuing genocidal ethnic cleansing? Is "identity" now a last-ditch cultural defence of ethnic nationalisms and competing fundamentalisms? What are the "rights", self-interest and civic duties in a climate of instant information, free markets and possible ecological disaster? What are the acceptable limits of scientific investigation, genetic engineering, the rights and wrongs of animal rights, euthanasia and civil disobedience? Introducing Ethics confronts these perplexing ethical dilemmas and anxieties of human existence. First published 1996 as Ethics for Beginners.