Philosophy, Ethics, and Public Policy: An Introduction

What makes a policy work? What should policies attempt to do, and what should they ought to do? These questions are at the heart of both policy-making and ethics. Philosophy, Ethics and Public Policy: An Introduction is designed for those coming to the subject of ethics and public policy for the first time. A central feature of the book is that Andrew I. Cohen uses contemporary examples and controversies, mainly drawn from policy in a North American context, to illustrate important flash points in ethics and public policy: Public policy and globalization: sweatshops, medicine and the developing world, and immigration Marriage, family and education: same-sex marriage, women and the family and education and Intelligent Design The ethics of the body and commodification: torture, the human organ trade, and factory farming of animals Each chapter illustrates how ethics offers ways of prioritizing some policy alternatives and imagining new ones and overall the book will help students understand the role of good reasoning in policymaking. It also suggests that sometimes the best policy is no policy. Or, if there is already a policy in place, perhaps the better policy is a different and less ambitious one. Including chapter summaries and annotated further reading this is an ideal introduction to a fast-growing subject.