The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature - Softcover

This volume brings together an extensive and varied collection of classical and contemporary readings on ethical theory and practice. Using literary works (33 in all) as touchstones, Pojman enlivens and makes concrete the ethical theory or applied issue being addressed in each chapter. Works by Hugo, Melvill, Tolstoy, Camus, LeGuin, and Styron among others, lead students into philosophical concepts and issues such as relativism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, the meaning of life, freedom, sex, love and marriage, and environmental ethics. Once introduced, these ideas and issues are developed further through readings by philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, Sartre, Bernard Williams, and Mary Anne Warren. Pojman has also balanced his selection of readings so that more weight is given to personal ethics (which is often ignored or minimized in the study of ethics) than to the more social dimension of ethics. Pojman's insightful editing provides for a smooth flow of ideas between the literary and philosophical works. His part and chapter introductions clearly tie together the wide variety of philosophical and literary selections. This book is intended for introduction to ethics courses, and sets before the student an engaging entry into personal and social ethics.