The very best books on applied ethics & decision making?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Hi

I’m looking for books about practical/applied ethics and ethical decision making. Are there any books any of you can recommend?

I’m not looking for introduction book to ethics in general or to applied ethics! And I’m not just looking for books that are just good (if I wonted that I could just read review on amazon) :slight_smile:. And I’m not looking for books on normative ethics

I’m looking for the books that you guys think are the best in these fields, books that are really special. (you favourites, the ones you have learned the most from :slight_smile: )

Hope you have some suggestions.

Thanks Jack

2

Could you narrow it down? Not normative is still a pretty wide field.

3

Aldous Huxley, “The Perennial Philosophy”.

4

Books on applied/practical ethics and/or ethical decision making.
Books that are not about pure ethical theory. I.e. books on how to apply ethical theory to actual situations in the real world and book on how to make good ethical decisions in real life.

Hope that helped. I can’t really make it any more clear I think :slight_smile:

5

A lot of those are gonna be more focused on normative ethics, though.

Other philosophies are more in tune with setting up reasons for action, whereas normative ethics are more based on the action.

I mean, I could recommend the Liji, but I don’t think that that is what you had in mind . . .

6

[quote=“Xunzian”]
A lot of those are gonna be more focused on normative ethics, though.

[quote]

I may have been a little unclear. I would like books on applied ethics that some normative ethics in them. e.g. trying to applied normative ethical theories to actual ethical problems and conflicts. Or how normative theories is used in an ethical decision making framework.

It’s all really simple, I just want good books on applied ethics! :slight_smile:

There are a lot of them out there. Like:

“What’s Wrong?: Applied Ethicists and Their Critics” by David Boonin and Graham Oddie

“Practical Ethics” by Peter Singer

“Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics” by Andrew Cohen and H. E. A. Wellman

Or

“Philosophy & This Actual World: An Introduction to Practical Philosophical Inquiry” by Martin Benjamin

I just don’t know which ones are really good reading!

7

peter singer’s work is crap, unless you think an ant has more rights than your children…

-Imp

8

Peter Singer’s work is great. Anything by him will give you alot to think about.

9

I have two seconds - that Singer is crap, and that The Perennial Philosophy is one of the greatest books ever written (that almost no one reads, at least).

But I haven’t read many books like the ones you describe (I did buy an anthology edited by Singer, because it had a couple of things in it I wanted to read. Not by him.) It’s pretty easy to come up with real-world scenarios, just by living.

Wish I could help. The Perennial Philosophy is better reading than any pop-morality book, anyway.