David McGraw

Elementary Observations on Western Ethics David McGraw

Different ethical systems are analyzed as growing out of different ideas concerning the basic character of reality. An introduction discusses ethics as one of the traditional main divisions of philosophy. An opening chapter looks at ethical experience as based on awareness of real life in the real world. Five more chapters trace developments through history. Plato answered challenges and analyzed what the universe must be in order for intellectual awareness of reality to be possible. Aristotle's ethical system was based on fulfilling oneself as a concrete being. Thomas Aquinas synthesized the best contributions of Plato and Aristotle by speaking of God the Absolute as the Creator. Kant and Mill explored ethical experience and left aside deep questions as far as possible. Sartre and Ayer challenged this whole tradition of ethics. An interlude on modern feminism examines challenges to entrenched ideas. Following this interlude are three chapters of applications to five of the great public controversies of the day (homosexuality, surrogate motherhood, abortion, euthanasia, and death penalty). The book concluded with a further treatment of ethical experience as based on real life. But this new edition adds an appendix on one of the great challenges Augustine and Aquinas faced, and another appendix on the basic principles of social and political structures.