Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics

by Simon Blackburn

Overview

Writing with wit and elegance, Simon Blackburn tackles the basic questions of ethics in this lively book, highlighting the complications and troubling issues that spring from the very simple question of how we ought to live. Blackburn dissects the many common reasons for why we are skeptical about ethics. Drawing on examples from history, politics, religion and everyday personal experience, he shows how cynicism and self-consciousness can paralyze us into considering ethics a hopeless pursuit. He assures us that ethics is neither futile nor irrelevant, but an intimate part of the most important issues of living—of birth, death, happiness, desire, freedom, pleasure, and justice. Indeed, from moral dilemmas about abortion and euthanasia, to our obsession with personal rights, to our longing for a sense of meaning in life, our everyday struggles are rife with ethical issues. Blackburn distills the arguments of Hume, Kant and Aristotle down to their essences, to underscore the timeless relevance of our voice of conscience, the pitfalls of complacency, and our concerns about truth, knowledge and human progress.

Blackburn's rare combination of depth, rigor, and sparkling prose, along with his distinguished ranking among contemporary philosophers, mark Being Good as an important statement on our current disenchantment with ethics. It challenges us to take a more thoughtful reading of our ethical climate and to ponder more carefully our own standards of behavior.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192853776
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/17/2003
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.72(w) x 5.62(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Simon Blackburn is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Until recently he was Edna J. Doury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, and from 1969 to 1999 was a Fellow and Tutor at Pembroke College, Oxford. He is the author of The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (1994) and the best-selling Think (OUP, 1999), among other books.

Table of Contents

PrefaceList of IllustrationsIntroductionSeven Threats to Ethics1. The Threat of the Death of God2. The Threat of Relativism3. The Threat of Egoism4. The Threat from Evolutionary Theory5. The Threat of Determinism and Futility6. The Threat of Unreasonable Demands7. The Threat of False ConsciousnessSome Ethical Ideas8. Birth9. Death10. Desire and the Meaning of Life11. Pleasure12. The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number13. Freedom from the Bad14. Freedom and Paternalism15. Rights and Natural RightsFoundations?16. Reasons and Foundations17. Living Well and Doing Good18. The Categorical Imperative19. Contracts and Discourse20. The Common Point of View21. Confidence RestoredFurther ReadingIndex

Editorial Reviews

"A brief introduction to ethics, one that plays lightly and gracefully over a number of philosophical themes, including the relationship between being good and living well."—Jim Holt, The New Yorker

"A slender but rich meditation on why humans should choose to behave well when the possibilities for doing evil are so abundant.... Highly accessible, and highly rewarding."—Kirkus

"Simon Blackburn's short book takes the big moral questions head on and does so brilliantly...a witty, vivid write with an enviable popular touch...this is a wonderfully enlightening book."—Ben Rogers, Sunday Telegraph

From the Publisher

A slender but rich meditation on why humans should choose to behave well when the possibilities for doing evil are so abundant. A follow-up to Blackburn's surprisingly popular Think (1999), this takes a closer look at the thorny subject of ethics, a timely matter in an age of scandal and gossip—even if most of us tend to be forgiving of, say, extramarital assignations and the white lies of daily life. Blackburn suggests that our tolerance befits the modern zeitgeist, a climate in which "we care more about our rights than about our ‘good'," the logical culmination of the "me decade" and the culture's insistence on relativism, political correctness, false consciousness, and other enemies of any system of shared ethical behavior. Without falling into tongue-clucking, and careful to distinguish ethics from morals, the author points the way to doing more than merely living "benevolent, admired lives" in benighted times; he urges readers to give close thought to matters of the public and private good and mull over terms such as "freedom" and "responsibility." Here, he offers us a handy guide to doing just that. His lively narrative examines what he considers to be the principal threats to ethical behavior, key ideas such as "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" and "freedom from the bad," and the foundations for a modern theory of ethics. Those foundations rest heavily on a much-admired model, the writings of Immanuel Kant, who believed that "necessity of the categorical imperative was easily visible to any reasoning creature." Blackburn's glosses lend a down-to-earth, commonsensical quality to Kant's rarified arguments, which he augments with other theories of right and wrong.Demanding but highly accessible, and highly rewarding.

Kirkus Reviews