Fundamentals of Ethics

includes index and biblioraphy

THE PRACTICALITY OF ETHICS Ethics is practical Implications of the practical character of ethics The great questions of ethics Practical understanding and nature `Everyone would say ..." Some conclusions about `good` and `nature` DESIRE, UNDERSTANDING AND HUMAN GOODS Reduction of ethics to (the desires of) `human nature` Desire and understanding The experience machine, the critique of feelings, and human flourishing A. Activity has its own point B. Maintenance of one`s identity is a good C. Is understood good the good of a system for securing satisfactions? Desire for understood goods: `will` and `participation in goods` Thin theories of human good The identification of-basic human goods Notes OBJECTIVITY, TRUTH AND MORAL PRINCIPLES Scepticism and objectivity The argument from queerness Objectivity and truth From `good` to `right`: from value judgment to choice `KANTIAN PRINCIPLES` AND ETHICS 109 Proportionalism and the Pauline principle 109 Proportionalism and Socrates`principle 112 `Treat humanity as an end, and never merely as a means` 120 Respect every basic human good in each of your acts 124 Can proportionalist weighing be avoided? Punish¿ ment and self-defence 127 ETHICS AND OUR DESTINY 136 The significance of free choices 136 A fundamental option to be reasonable? 142 Objectivity and friendship revisited 144 On`the last things` 150 `Right reason`: the transparency of practical reasonableness The variety of intermediate principles and the argument from relativity Notes UTILITARIANISM, CONSEQUENTIALISM, PROPORTIONALISM ... OR ETHICS? The varieties and the terminology A. `Utilitarianism` B. `Consequentialism` C. `Teleological ethics` D. Troportionalism` Incommensurability How we evaluate practical solutions as `better` or `worse` Standard techniques of rationalization A new form of rationalization Notes