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Recommended resources for ‘Introduction to Ethics’, Reading, Autumn 2013

Andrea Lechler

Introductory textbooks

Most highly recommended as an accompaniment to this course:

Mark Timmons, Moral Theory. An Introduction (Plymouth: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).

Russ Shafer-Landau, The Fundamentals of Ethics, 2nd ed. (New York: OUP, 2012).

Other recommended introductions:

James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy, various editions (New York: McGraw-Hill). [has been popular as an ethics textbook for many years]

Harry J. Gensler, Ethics. A Contemporary Introduction, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2011). [contains more discussion of different metaethical theories and the Golden Rule than most introductory ethics books; very accessible though clearly aimed at young undergraduates]

Julia Driver, Ethics. The Fundamentals (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007). [another very accessible and concise introduction]

Richard Norman, The Moral Philosophers: An Introduction to Ethics, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 1998). [a good introduction to important historical figures in moral philosophy]

Simon Blackburn, Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 2003). [doesn’t deal with topics under the usual headings but still discusses most of the issues we’ll look at]

Companions (introductions to different topics in ethics by multiple authors)

Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).

David Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook to Ethical Theory (Oxford: OUP, 2006).

Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993).

John Skorupski (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Ethics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010).

Roger Crisp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics (Oxford: OUP, 2013).

Anthologies (excerpts mainly from primary sources)

Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Ethical Theory. An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007).

John Cottingham (ed.), Western Philosophy. An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell 1996, 2008.) [most readings relevant for this course are in section VIII]

Peter Singer (ed.), Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

Podcasts and videos







Week 2: Moral relativism

Moral relativism is discussed in most introductory ethics texts. I particularly recommend chapter 3 in Timmons and Chapter 2 in Rachels.

Jamie Dreier, 2006, “Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism,” in D. Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, New York: Oxford University Press, 240–64.

Chris Gowans, "Moral Relativism", in E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, .

Emrys Westacott, “Moral Relativism”, in J. Fieser and B. Dowden (ed.), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,



Conversations on Philosophy TV: (more advanced level)

Week 3: Conflicts of moral principles and Ross’s intuitionism

▪ David Ross, The Right and the Good, ed. Philip Stratton-Lake (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

▪ David Ross, Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939).

▪ David McNaughton, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties’, The Philosophical Quarterly 46 (185), 1996, 433-447.

▪ Robert, Audi, The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and Intrinsic Value (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

▪ Philip Stratton-Lake, Ethical Intuitionism: Re-evaluations (The introduction contains a useful overview of the history of intuitionism and responses to common objections.)

▪ Martha C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

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▪ David McNaughton, ‘Intuitionism’, in The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, ed. Hugh LaFollette.

▪ Philip Stratton-Lake, ‘Ethical Intuitionism’, in The Routledge Companion to Ethics, ed. John Skorupski.

▪ Jonathan Dancy, ‘An Ethic of Prima Facie Duties’, in A Companion to Ethics, ed. Peter Singer.

Textbook chapters:

▪ Chapters 15 and 16 in Shafer-Landau

▪ Chapters 4 and 11 in Gensler

▪ Chapter 7 in Driver

▪ Chapter 9 in Timmons

Week 4: Egoism

▪ Plato’s Republic, especially books I and II. A free translation can be found here:

▪ Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, especially chapters 13-15.

▪ David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

▪ Julia Annas, ‘Virtue Ethics and the Charge of Egoism’:

Part III and chapters 62 and 63 in Ethical Theory. An Anthology.





















Many of the introductory ethics textbooks and companions listed above have chapters on egoism and contractarianism / social contract theories.

The following is a course in political philosophy, but it contains various sessions on Plato, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau that are relevant to this class.



Week 5: The Golden Rule

▪ Marcus G. Singer, “The Golden Rule”, Philosophy 38 (1963): 293-394.

▪ Alan Gewirth, “The Golden Rule Rationalized”, Midwest Studies in Philosophy 3 (1978): 133-47. (reprinted in Ethical Theory. An Anthology.)

▪ Brad Hooker, “The Golden Rule”, Think 10 (2005): 25–9.

▪ R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963).

▪ Derek Parfit, On What Matters, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), volume 1, chapter 46.

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▪ Chapter 8 in Gensler, Ethics. A Contemporary Introduction.

Week 5 and 6: Utilitarianism

▪ John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1861). (This is a classic and quite accessible text on utilitarianism. It is available for free here: )

▪ Henry Sigwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edition, 1907. (Available for free here: )

▪ Peter Singer, ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1(3), 1972,

pp. 229-243. (reprinted in Shafer-Landau (ed.), Ethical Theory, pp. 505-512)

▪ J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).

▪ Brad Hooker, Ideal Code, Real World (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).

▪ Richard Yetter Chappell, ‘Value Receptacles’, Noȗs, 2013.

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All the recommended introductory textbooks and companions, as well as Shafer-Landau’s anthology, have chapters on utilitarianism /consequentialism.

Week 7: Immanuel Kant’s ethics

Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten,1785).

Free online translations:

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Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten,1796).







Chapters 55 to 57 in Ethical Theory. An Anthology.

All the recommended introductory textbooks and companions have chapters on Kant’s ethics or Kantian ethics. Sometimes he is discussed under the heading ‘deontology’.

Podcasts on Kant’s ethics:

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Week 8: Impartiality and the common good

• Stephen Darwall, The British Moralists and the Internal ‘Ought’. 164-1740 (Cambridge: CUP, 1995).

• Allan W. Wood, Kantian Ethics (Cambridge: CUP, 2008).

• Mark C. Murphy, ‘The Common Good’, Review of Metaphysics, 59(1), 2005.

• Gerald J. Postema, ‘Interests, Universal and Particular: Bentham’s Utilitarian Theory of Value’, Utilitas, 18(2), 2006.

• David O. Brink, Perfectionism and the Common Good. Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green (Oxford: OUP, 2003).

Week 9: Virtue ethics and particularism

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. (The edition by Sarah Broadie and Christopher Rowe comes with a very useful introduction and commentary.)

• Anscombe, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Philosophy 33, 1958, 1–19.

• Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1985).

• Jonathan Dancy, Ethics Without Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

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• All the textbooks and companions referenced above have chapters on Aristotelian virtue ethics and some of them also on particularism.

Week 10: David Hume’s ethics and Nel Noddings’s ethics of care

• David Hume, Treatise on Human Nature (1739–40), especially books two and three.

• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751).

• Nel Noddings, Caring. A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984).

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• Many companions and introductory textbooks have chapters on feminist ethics which discuss Noddings. Some also have chapters on Hume’s ethics or other forms of sentimentalism.

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