Books in the Elements in Ethics series

A critical survey of the full range of G. E. Moore's ethical thought, including his rejection of naturalism in favor of the view that 'good' designates a simple indefinable property, his understanding of intrinsic value, his doctrine of organic wholes, and his critique of egoism and subjectivism.

Presenting Thomas Reid's agency-centered ethical theory. This means, one according to which agency intersects with the subject matter of ethics in a sufficiently wide range of important ways that we cannot satisfactorily engage in ethical theorizing without committing ourselves to and, ultimately developing, particular understandings of agency.

This Element offers a brief overview of Buddhist thought and modern scholarly approaches to its diverse forms of moral reflection. It then explores two of the most prominent philosophers from the main strands of the Indian Buddhist tradition - Buddhaghosa and Santideva - in a comparative fashion.

This Element discusses Nietzsche's ethics in his late works, from 1886 onwards. Explaining the basics of his ethical theory and exploring his goals in writing a history of Christian morality, it also takes a broader look, respectively, at Nietzsche's wider philosophy in light of his ethics.

This Element provides an overview of the central components of recent work in virtue ethics. The first section explores central themes in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, while the second turns the discussion to major alternative theoretical perspectives. The third section focuses on some of the challenges to virtue ethics.

An account of Thomas Aquinas's moral philosophy, emphasizing the intrinsic connection between happiness and the human good, human virtue, and the precepts of practical reason. Humans achieve happiness by performing good human acts, which are produced by the intellect and the will, and perfected by the relevant virtues.

There is presently a debate between Subjectivists and Objectivists about moral wrongness. After outlining and evaluating the various arguments both against Subjectivism and against Objectivism, this Element offers a tentative defense of Objectivism about moral wrongness.

Derek Parfit (1942-2017) was one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This Element offers a critical introduction to his wide-ranging ethical thought, focusing on Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters (2011), and their contribution to the consequentialist moral tradition.

The Element provides an overview of Immanuel Kant's arguments regarding the content of the moral law (the categorical imperative), as well as an exposition of his arguments for the bindingness of the moral law for rational agents. The Element also considers common objections to Kant's ethics.

This Element begins by describing T.M. Scanlon's contractualism according to which an action is right when it is authorised by the moral principles no one could reasonably reject. This view has argued to have implausible consequences with regards to how different-sized groups, non-human animals, and cognitively limited human beings should be treated. It has also been accused of being theoretically redundant and unable to vindicate the so-called deontic distinctions. I then distinguish between the general contractualist framework and Scanlon's version of contractualism. I explain how the general framework enables us to formulate many other versions of contractualism some of which can already be found in the literature. Understanding contractualism in this new way enables us both to understand the structural similarities and differences between different versions of contractualism and also to see the different objections to contractualism as internal debates about which version of contractualism is correct.

A systematic defense of moral contractarianism as a distinct approach to the social contract, with particular relevance for morally diverse societies. It elucidates, in comparison to moral conventionalism and moral contractualism, the distinct features of moral contractarianism, its scope, and conceptual and practical challenges.