Ethics in Hard Times

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Can Ethics Provide Answers?

   • James Rachels

   Pages 1-30

3. The Concept of Moral Standing

   • Peter Singer

   Pages 31-45

4. Why Should We be Moral?

   • Jonathan Lieberson

   Pages 47-90

5. Economic Justice in Hard Times

   • Robert Lekachman

   Pages 91-115

6. Rights Versus Duties

   • Robert A. Goldwin

   Pages 117-142

7. Law and the Legislation of Morality

   • A. D. Woozley

   Pages 143-174

8. Analytic Methods and the Ethics of Policy

   • Thomas C. Schelling

   Pages 175-215

9. The American Pluralist Conception of Politics

   • Sheldon S. Wolin

   Pages 217-259

10. Minimalist Ethics

    • Daniel Callahan

    Pages 261-281

11. Back Matter

    Pages 283-296

    PDF

There is widespread agreement among large segments of western society that we are living in a period of hard times. At first glance such a belief might seem exceedingly odd. After all, persons in western society find themselves living in a time of unprecedented material abundance. Hunger and disease, evils all too familiar to the members of earlier generations, although far from eradicated from modern life, are plainly on the wane. Persons alive today can look forward to healthier, longer, and more comfortable lives than those of their grand­ parents. Nevertheless, the feeling that life today is especially difficult is rampant in government, in the media, in popular books, and in academic circles. Western society is perceived in many quarters as wracked by crises of all sorts-of faith, of power, of authority, of social turmoil, of declining quality in workmanship and products, and of a general intellectual malaise afflicting both those on the Left and the Right. A tone of crisis permeates the language of public life. Editorials in major newspapers are full of dire warnings about the dangers of unbridled egoism, avarice and greed, and the risks and horrors of pollution, overpopulation, the arms race, crime, and indulgent lifestyles.

• crisis
• dance
• ethics
• health
• language
• lifestyle
• living
• media
• morality
• time

• Institute of Society, Ethics, and the Life Sciences, The Hastings Center, Hastings-on-Hudson, USA

  Arthur L. Caplan, Daniel Callahan

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