Overview

Your approachable guide to ethical philosophy Ethics For Dummies, 2nd Edition is an easy-to-grasp introduction to the branch of philosophy that deals with living a good life. Learn about the most important concepts and thinkers in the world of ethics, so you can analyze issues in the modern world from an ethical perspective. Explore standards of right and wrong, fairness, virtues, and how different cultures approach the questions of ethics—this book explains it all in clear and simple terms. Plus, it demystifies the writings of great ethicists like Aristotle, Confucius, Descartes, Kant, and Hume. Throughout the book, you practice theorizing on major ethical questions of today, including AI and social media. Inside: Discover non-Western approaches to ethics, including Hindu, African, and Indigenous ways of thought Explore ethical questions around race, social constructs, disability, and beyond Get help understanding the writings of Aristotle, Confucius, and other famous ethical philosophers Apply ethics to your everyday life, for more confident, reasoned decisions With Ethics For Dummies, 2nd Edition, become more comfortable with the centuries-old study of ethical philosophy, so you can pass your ethics class—or just pass the ethical tests life throws your way.

Full Product Details

Author:   Christopher Panza (Drury University, MO) ,  Adam Potthast (Minnesota State College Southeast, MN)
Publisher:   John Wiley & Sons Inc
Imprint:   For Dummies
Edition:   2nd edition
Dimensions:   Width: 18.80cm , Height: 3.10cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.499kg
ISBN:  

9781394366361

ISBN 10:   1394366361
Pages:   416
Publication Date:   13 January 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Awaiting stock  

Table of Contents

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Conventions Used in This Book 2 What You’re Not to Read 3 Foolish Assumptions 3 How This Book Is Organized 4 Part 1: Ethics 101: Just the Basics, Please 4 Part 2: Surveying Key Ethical Theories 4 Part 3: Applying Ethics to Real Life 4 Part 5: The Part of Tens 4 Icons Used in This Book 5 Beyond the Book 5 Where to Go from Here 6 Part 1: Ethics 101: Just the Basics, Please 7 Chapter 1: Approaching Ethics: What Is It and Why Should You Care? 9 Knowing the Right Words: The Vocabulary of Ethics 10 Focusing on should and ought 10 Avoiding the pitfall of separating ethics and morality 11 Putting law in its proper place 12 Identifying Two Arguments for Being Ethical 14 Why be ethical 101? It pays off! 14 Why be ethical 201? You’ll live a life of integrity 15 Committing Yourself to the Ethical Life 16 Taking stock: Know thyself 16 Building your moral framework 17 Seeing where you need to go 18 Chapter 2: Butting Heads: Is Ethics Just a Matter of Opinion? 21 Subjectivism: Basing Ethics on Each Person’s Opinion 22 Right for me and wrong for you: The subjectivist position 22 Recognizing that subjectivism can’t handle disagreement 23 They’re always right: Subjectivists make bad houseguests 25 Determining what subjectivism gets right 26 Cultural Relativism: Grounding Ethics in the Group’s Opinion 27 Discovering what it means to be a cultural relativist 27 Understanding why cultural relativism is always so popular 28 Living in many worlds: Some problems with cultural relativism 29 Looking at cultural relativism’s lack of respect for tolerance 30 Noting cultural relativism’s successes 32 Emotivism: Seeing Ethics as a Tool of Expression 33 Expressing yourself: Booing and cheering in ethics 33 Arguing emotionally: A problem for emotivists 34 Getting motivation right: A victory for emotivism 36 Chapter 3: Exploring Connections between Ethics, Religion, and Science 37 Clarifying the Relationship between God, Religion, and Ethical Codes 38 Knowing the difference between God and religion 38 Contemplating the diversity of religious ethical codes 39 Because God Said So: Understanding Divine Command Theory 41 God’s authority: Considering why God gets to be in charge 42 Figuring out what happens when divine commands conflict 43 Plato’s big challenge: Questioning what makes something ethical 45 When Ethics Gets in the Way of God: Introducing Kierkegaard 47 The Abraham dilemma: When God tells you to kill your child 47 Embracing a God who’s beyond ethics 49 Overcoming your despair: Can faith take you beyond ethics? 49 When God Gets in the Way of Ethics: Introducing Nietzsche 51 Portraying religion as an ethics of weakness 51 Leaping over faith: Ethics as inner strength rooted in self-creation 52 Examining Nietzsche’s new idea: The ethics of inner strength 54 The Age of Science: Figuring Out If Ethics Can Exist in a Secular World 55 Staying silent on the spiritual 55 Defining ethics in a materialistic world 56 Establishing good behavior without heaven or hell 57 Evolution and Ethics: Rising Above the Law of the Jungle 58 Seeing how selfish genes can promote unselfish behavior 59 Noting the irrelevance of (most) evolutionary theory to ethics 61 Part 2: Surveying Key Ethical Theories 63 Chapter 4: Being an Excellent Person: Virtue Ethics 65 The Lowdown: Virtuous Character Matters 66 Discovering why character matters 66 Connecting character with action 67 Seeing character as a way of life 67 Virtue: Settled habits towards the good 68 Linking Virtue to Cultivating Your Human Nature 69 How virtue is linked to human nature 69 Cultivating your nature is good and good for you 71 Examining what cultivated human nature looks like 72 Virtuous immersion in your social world 73 Responding virtuously to the universe itself 75 Asking Whether Virtue Guarantees Happiness 76 Aristotle: Virtue is not enough for human flourishing 77 Aurelius: Virtue is all you need to flourish 78 Figuring Out How to Acquire the Virtues 79 Can virtues really be taught? 79 Apprenticing yourself to a virtuous master or two or three 80 Aristotle: Shaping how we experience the world 81 Aurelius: Correcting how we see the world 85 Assessing Criticisms of Virtue Ethics 88 It’s difficult to know which virtues are right 89 Virtues can’t give exact guidance 90 Virtue ethics is really self-centered 91 Being virtuous is a lucky crapshoot 92 Chapter 5: Maximizing the Good: Consequentialist Ethics 95 Paying Close Attention to Results: Consequences Matter 96 Consequences matter to everyone 96 Consequences ethically trump principles and character 98 Surveying What Makes Consequences Good 99 Utilitarianism says: More pleasure, less pain (please!) 100 Beethoven or beer: Recognizing why some pleasures are better than others 102 Putting Utilitarianism into Action 104 Whose happiness counts? 104 How much happiness is enough? 105 Focusing On Two Different Ways to Be a Successful Utilitarian 106 Directly increasing the good through your actions 106 Indirectly increasing the good by following the rules 109 Exploring Traditional Problems with Utilitarianism 112 Challenge 1: Justice and rights play second fiddle in utilitarianism 112 Challenge 2: Utilitarianism is too demanding 114 Challenge 3: Utilitarianism may threaten your integrity 115 Challenge 4: Knowing what produces the most good is impossible 116 Chapter 6: Doing Your Duty: The Ethics of Principle 119 Kant’s Ethics: Acting on Reasonable Principles 120 Defining principles 120 Noting the difference between principles and rules 121 Making sense of Kantian ethics: The struggle between nature and reason 122 Autonomy: Being a law unto yourself 125 Living by the Categorical Imperative: Reasonable Principles 126 Looking behind actions: Maxims are principles 127 Examining imperatives 130 Surveying the Forms of the Categorical Imperative 132 Form 1: Living by universal principles 132 Form 2: Respecting everyone’s humanity 135 Applying the Categorical Imperative to Real-Life Dilemmas 136 Using the Formula of Universal Law to distinguish imperfect from perfect duties 137 Applying the Formula of Humanity to ethical topics 141 Scrutinizing Kant’s Ethics 142 Unconditional duty: Can you lie to a murderer? 143 Guiding actions in real moral dilemmas 143 Making enough room for feelings 144 Accounting for beings with no reason 145 Chapter 7: Signing on the Dotted Line: Ethics as Contract 147 Creating Ethics with Contracts 148 Reviewing Hobbes’s state of nature: The war of all against all 149 Escaping the state of nature: Enter the sovereign! 151 Moving to the modern form of social contracts 152 Restructuring Social Institutions According to Rawls’s Theory of Justice 153 Taking stock of the original position and its veil of ignorance 154 Arriving at the liberty and difference principles 155 Beyond the Dotted Line: Criticizing Contract Theory 158 But I never signed on the dotted line! 159 Libertarianism: Contracts make people lose too much liberty 160 Communitarianism: Challenging the veil of ignorance 161 Chapter 8: Turning Down the Testosterone: Feminist Care Ethics 163 The Feminist Challenge: Traditional Ethics Is Biased toward Men 164 De Beauvoir: How socialization shapes our thinking 164 Getting a grasp on the feminist approach 166 Seeing how bias seeps into your life 168 Exploring how bias infects ethics 169 A case study of male bias: Kohlberg’s theory of moral development 170 Considering Gilligan’s criticism of Kohlberg’s model 173 Surveying a New Feminist Ethics of Care 178 Putting relationships first 179 Letting feelings count: Cultivating care 180 Embracing partiality 182 Care avoids abstraction 183 Further Developing the Notion of Caring 183 Caring requires a deep and reciprocal bond 184 Jumping into another’s skin: Engrossment 185 Moving from me to you: Motivational displacement 185 Closing the loop: The need for reciprocity 186 Considering the Politics of Caring 187 Assembling the basic components of caring 188 Embracing the political dimension of care 189 Reviewing Criticisms of Care Ethics 190 Care ethics and public life: An uneasy fit 190 Do some relationships really deserve care? 192 Could care ethics harm women? 193 Chapter 9: Global Morality: Examining Non-Western Ethics 195 Thinking Differently: Why Cross-Cultural Ethics Matters 196 Avoiding Ethnocentrism: Seeing Ethics as Embedded in Cultural Contexts 196 Cultivating Relationships: Confucian Ethics 197 Why relationships? Understanding the big picture 197 Embodying ren: Building excellent relationships 199 The ethical importance of learning 199 Mirroring good role models 200 Developing the virtues to support ren 202 Confucian dedication to developing others 204 Reducing Suffering: Buddhist Ethics 206 The significance of life before becoming Buddha 207 Emergence of the Buddha and Buddhist doctrine 208 The ethical cure to suffering: The eightfold path 211 Cultivating virtue: Joy, kindness, and compassion 212 Harmony with Nature: Daoist Ethics 213 Tackling the inexpressible Dao: Life as a mystery 214 Cultivating an ethics that rejects ethics 218 Reawakening the Spiritual: Hindu Ethics 221 Atman and brahman: Finding your eternal self 221 Dharma: The ethical path to enlightenment 223 Achieving liberation: The final aim of the system 227 Part 3: Applying Ethics to Real Life 229 Chapter 10: Dealing with Mad Scientists: Biomedical Ethics 231 Examining Some Principles of Biomedical Ethics 232 Paternalism: Does a doctor always know best? 232 Autonomy: Being in the driver’s seat for your own healthcare decisions 233 Beneficence and nonmaleficence: Doing no harm 235 Taking a Closer Look at the Intractable Issue of Abortion 236 Deciding who is and isn’t a person 237 A right to life from the beginning: Being pro-life 238 The freedom to control one’s body: Being pro-choice 238 A 21st Century Problem: Attack of the Clones 239 Understanding the growing use of cloning in medicine 240 Determining whether cloning endangers individuality 241 Anticipating Ethical Problems with Genetic Technologies 243 Testing to avoid abnormalities 243 Finding cures for diseases with stem cell research 244 Considering genetic privacy concerns 246 Manipulating the genome to create designer people 246 Dying and Dignity: Debating Euthanasia 248 Dealing with controversy at the end of life 248 Making autonomous choices about death 249 Killing the most vulnerable 250 Thinking beyond the West: Palliative care 251 Chapter 11: Protecting the Habitat: Environmental Ethics 253 Canvassing Environmental Ethics 254 Recognizing environmental problems 254 Expanding care past human beings 255 Determining Whose Interests Count 258 Getting interested in interests 258 Anthropocentrism: Only humans matter! 260 Sentientism: Don’t forget animals 262 Biocentrism: Please don’t pick on life 263 Ecocentrism: The land itself is alive 265 Turning to Environmental Approaches 269 Conservationism: Keeping an eye on costs 269 Deep ecology: Viewing interconnection as the key 270 Social ecology: Blaming domination 272 Examining Criticisms of Environmental Ethics 274 Ecofascism : Pushing humans out of the picture 274 Valuing things in a nonhuman-centered way: Is it possible? 275 Chapter 12: Looking Out for the Little Guy: Ethics and Animals 277 Focusing on the Premise of Animal Rights 278 Questioning whether humans really are superior to animals 279 Seeing why Peter Singer says animals feel pain, too 280 Being wary of speciesism 282 Experimenting on Animals for the Greater Good 284 The main rationale for experimenting: Harming animals saves humans 284 Debating animal testing of consumer products 286 To Eat or Not to Eat Animals: That’s the Question 287 Understanding why ethical vegetarians don’t eat meat 287 Responding to ethical vegetarians: Omnivores strike back! 288 Looking at factory farming’s effects on animals 290 Vegans: Eliminating animal servitude 291 Targeting the ethics of hunting animals 292 Chapter 13: Vibing with the Bots: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence 295 Focusing on AI: The High Stakes of Computing 296 Distinguishing three types of AI: The good, the bad, and the ugly 297 Regulating the robots: Goals and ethical principles for AI 300 It’s getting hot in here: The environmental impact of AI 301 Respecting the User: Manipulation and Deception 302 Training or draining? Data accumulation, bias, and privacy rights 303 Robot writers: Who owns AI-generated work? 305 Gaming the system: Using AI to ace your essay 307 Reality bytes: Deepfakes and propaganda 308 Transparency: Making AI open-source and explainable 309 Seeking the Singularity: The Day AI Outsmarts Us All 310 Seeing the Singularity as a unique ethical challenge 310 Existential risks: Autonomous weaponry 312 Sticking up for the robots: Ethical obligations to AI 314 Challenging Human Dignity: How AI Will Rewrite the Human World 314 Loving the LLM: AI that cares about you 315 Turning it off and on again: Sex robots? 316 Losing our minds: When humans no longer understand the world 318 What would you say you do here? AI and the disappearance of work 319 Chapter 14: Making Accommodations: Disability Ethics 321 Challenging Normality: Disability Trend Setter 322 Casting disability as abnormality: The common view 322 Looking under the hood and poking at normality 323 Recasting disability as difference: The contrary view 324 Deaf culture 325 Uncovering Ableism: Hidden Discrimination 326 Explaining ableism and how to spot it 327 Seeing ableism as more than an intention 328 Considering institutional ableism 329 Exposing internalized ableism 331 Interpersonal ableism 332 Combatting ableism: Nothing about us, without us 334 Locating Disability: Is It Physical or Social? 335 Dissecting the medical model: The body as problem 336 Restraining common view and medical model 338 Recognizing the dangers of eugenics 338 Considering genetic engineering and abortion 339 Turning to the social model: Society as the problem 340 Thinking biopsychosocial: The hybrid model 343 Complicating Disability: Intersectional Ethics 344 Understanding the experience of disability 345 Complicating disability with race, gender, and class 346 An ethical suggestion: Pause and ponder 349 How Disability Challenges Ethics 350 Chapter 15: Liking and Subscribing: Social Media Ethics 353 Socializing Online: Social Media as the New Ethical Frontier 354 Examining issues of privacy on the internet 355 Social media and long-term online identities 362 Hailing the Almighty Algorithm: Programming the Social Revolution 366 The hidden hand of the platform algorithm 367 Doomscrolling, addiction, and mental health in social media 370 Calling the Mods: The Responsibilities of Social Media Platforms 371 Part 4: the Part of Tens 373 Chapter 16: Ten Famous Ethicists and Their Theories 375 Confucius: Nurturing Virtue in Good Relationships 375 Plato: Living Justly through Balance 376 Aristotle: Making Virtue Ethics a Habit 376 Hobbes: Beginning Contract Theory 377 Hume: Eyeing the Importance of Moral Feelings 377 Kant: Being Ethical Makes You Free 378 Mill: Maximizing Utility Matters Most 379 Nietzsche: Connecting Morals and Power 379 Rawls: Looking Out for the Least Well-Off 380 Singer: Speaking Out for Modern Utilitarianism 380 Chapter 17: Ten Ethical Dilemmas Likely to Arise in the Future 381 Making Designer Genes to Create Designer Babies 381 Privacy Absolutism and Erasing Your Digital Self 382 Managing the Growing Population of Planet Earth 383 Dealing with Dramatic Increases in the Human Lifespan 383 Digital Immortality and Uploading Your Mind 384 Geohacking the Planet to Alter the Climate 384 Exploring and Terraforming New Worlds 385 Universal Basic Income — Everyone Gets a Piece of the Action 385 New Governments in Virtual Reality 386 Free, Unlimited Energy and the End of Scarcity 387 Whoa, Dinosaur! Resurrecting Extinct Species 388 Index 389

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Christopher Panza, PhD, is a Professor of Philosophy at Drury University. He teaches Confucianism, ethics, and existentialism. He holds a PhD in Philosophy. Adam Potthast, PhD, is Dean of Liberal Arts, Sciences, and Transfer at Minnesota State College Southeast. He holds a PhD in Philosophy.

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