Introduction

The ‘Introduction’ provides an overview of ethics and the ethical climate. People's ethical ideas are manifested in their tendencies to accept or reject routes of thought and feeling, and they may not recognize these in themselves, or even be able to articulate them. Yet such tendencies make up the ethical climate, and they rule the social and political world. For many ethical traditions across the world, the central concern was the state of one's soul. Today, people tend not to care so much about the state of their souls: they tend to think that modern constitutional democracies are fine regardless of the private vices of those within them.

Seven threats to thinking about ethics

‘Seven threats to thinking about ethics’ discusses the seven threats to ethical thinking, looking at ideas that destabilize one when one thinks about standards of choice and conduct. In various ways, these ideas seem to suggest that ethical thought is somehow impossible. They are important because they themselves can seep into the moral environment. When they do, they can change what people expect from each other and themselves, usually for the worse. How big are the threats of the death of God, relativism, egoism, evolutionary theory, determinism and futility, unreasonable demands, and the false consciousness?

Foundations

‘Foundations’ examines the justification for ethics, and its connection with human knowledge and human progress. Are truth and knowledge possible, or does reasoning about what to do eventually hinge on nothing but sheer brute will? There is a differentiation to be made between two types of reason and the concepts of doing good and living well are important here. If people’s capacity for ethical behaviour is not immediately given by their nature as human beings, nor by an inescapable birthright of reason, where does it come from? Thomas Hobbes attempts to answer this question with the notion of the war of all against all. How important is the emergence of norms, particularly cooperation?

Some ethical ideas

‘Some ethical ideas’ explores some ethical ideas on desire, happiness, freedom, birth, and death. The flexibility of the term ‘freedom’ undoubtedly plays a huge role in the rhetoric of political demands, particularly when the language of rights mingles with the language of freedom. The enemy here would be any elitism, or paternalism, supposing that some particular kinds of people—through superior reason or knowledge or wisdom—are best fitted to govern the rest, since they know people’s interests better than the people themselves do. The language of ‘natural rights’ is an important consideration within ethical ideas and this includes the concepts of decency, civility, and trust.