Ethics & Moral Philosophy

Utilitarianism

John Stuart Mill

Actions are right in proportion as they promote happiness, and Mill defends this against the charge that pleasure is too base a standard by distinguishing higher from lower pleasures.

Assumes no prior ethics — Mill is defending a position he expects you to find crude, in plain prose

Contractarianism

Ann Cudd & Seena Eftekhari

Traces the Hobbesian idea that morality's authority comes from mutual self-interested agreement rather than independent moral truth, and asks what such a bargain can actually deliver for the weak.

Moral Realism

Geoff Sayre-McCord

Distinguishes the different commitments bundled under 'moral realism' and argues the central one is simply that some moral claims are true independently of any particular person's attitude toward them.

Contractualism

Elizabeth Ashford & Tim Mulgan

Explains Scanlon's test for a wrong act, that it is one nobody could reasonably reject a principle permitting, and works through why this yields a different verdict from utilitarianism in cases involving few against many.

Feminist Ethics

Kathryn Norlock & Jordan Pascoe

Surveys the care-centred critique of mainstream ethics, that traditional theories elevate abstract impartial rules over the particular relationships of attention and responsiveness that care ethics takes as morally basic.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith

Grounds moral judgement in sympathy, the capacity to imagine how an impartial spectator would feel about one's conduct, rather than in reason or calculated self-interest.

The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy

William Paley

Derives moral rules from what a benevolent God would want for human happiness, arriving at a theological utilitarianism that grounds rightness in general welfare rather than individual conscience.

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Jeremy Bentham

Grounds all morals and law in the single principle of utility, and proposes a felicific calculus for weighing the pleasure and pain an act produces.

The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul

Joshua Greene

Argues, from patterns in brain imaging and judgement studies, that deontological moral judgements are driven by automatic emotional responses that then get dressed up afterwards as principled reasoning.

Metaethics from a First Person Standpoint

Catherine Wilson

Works through the standard metaethical positions from the deliberating agent's point of view, arguing that moral scepticism is harder to hold from the inside of a decision than from the outside.

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Immanuel Kant

Grounds morality in what any rational agent must will universally, and rules out treating a person merely as a means.

Assumes prior ethics reading and a second pass; Kant defines his terms as he goes, then uses them strictly

An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue

Francis Hutcheson

Locates moral judgement in an inner moral sense that perceives benevolence the way the eye perceives colour, and is credited with the earliest statement of the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the measure of right action.