Brief yet thorough and affordably priced, The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems, Fourth Edition, is ideal for courses in introductory ethics and contemporary moral problems. Featuring forty-two readings divided into four parts--The Good Life, Normative Ethics, Metaethics, and Moral Problems--it introduces students to ethical theory and a wide range of moral issues. The essays include selections from such historically influential philosophers as Aristotle, Hume, Kant, and Mill alongside work by contemporary philosophers like Philippa Foot, Robert Nozick, Peter Singer, and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Detailed reading introductions provide helpful contextual information.

Designed as a companion reader to Russ Shafer-Landau's textbook, The Fundamentals of Ethics, Fourth Edition, this volume is also comprehensive enough to be used on its own.

Russ Shafer-Landau is Professor of Philosophy and Director of The Parr Center for Ethics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of several books including The Fundamentals of Ethics, Fourth Edition (OUP, 2017). He is also the editor of Oxford Studies in Metaethics.

*=New to this Edition
Preface
A Note on the Companion Volume
INTRODUCTION
PART I. THE GOOD LIFE
1. John Stuart Mill, Hedonism
2. Robert Nozick, The Experience Machine
3. Chris Heathwood, Faring Well and Getting What You Want
* 4. Brad Hooker, The Elements of Well-Being
* 5. Susan Wolf, Happiness and Meaning: Two Aspects of the Good Life
PART II. NORMATIVE ETHICS: Theories of Right Conduct
6. Plato, Euthyphro
* 7. Thomas Aquinas, Natural Law
* 8. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
9. Immanuel Kant, The Good Will and the Categorical Imperative
10. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
11. W.D. Ross, What Makes Right Acts Right?
12. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
13. Hilde Lindemann, What Is Feminist Ethics?
PART III. METAETHICS: The Status of Morality
14. David Hume, Moral Distinctions Not Derived from Reason
15. A.J. Ayer, A Critique of Ethics
* 16. Gilbert Harman, Ethics and Observation
17. Harry Gensler, Cultural Relativism
18. David Enoch, Why I Am an Objectivist about Ethics (And Why You Are, Too)
PART IV. MORAL PROBLEMS
* 19. Kwame Anthony Appiah, What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For?
Poverty and Hunger
20. Peter Singer, The Singer Solution to World Poverty
21. Jan Narveson, Feeding the Hungry
Euthanasia and A Modest Proposal
22. James Rachels, The Morality of Euthanasia
23. John Harris, The Survival Lottery
Animals
24. Alastair Norcross, Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases
25. R.G. Frey, Moral Standing, The Value of Lives, and Speciesism
The Environment
* 26. Eric Posner and Cass Sunstein, Climate Change Justice
27. Thomas Hill, Jr., Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments
Abortion
28. Judith Jarvis Thomson, A Defense of Abortion
29. Don Marquis, Why Abortion Is Immoral
30. Philippa Foot, Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect
The Death Penalty
31. Igor Primoratz, Justifying Legal Punishment
32. Stephen Nathanson, An Eye for an Eye?
* Guns
* 33. Jeff McMahan, Why Gun "Control" Is Not Enough
* 34. Michael Huemer, Is There a Right to Own a Gun?
The Legacy of Racism
* 35. Chris Lebron, Time for a New Black Radicalism
36. Louis P. Pojman, The Case against Affirmative Action
37. Daniel Hausman, Affirmative Action: Bad Arguments and Some Good Ones
* 38. Elizabeth Anderson, The Future of Racial Integration
Drugs
39. Michael Huemer, America's Unjust Drug War
* 40. Peter de Marneffe, Against the Legalization of Drugs
* Copyright
* 41. Jonathan Trerise, Why Illegally Downloading Files is Morally Wrong
* 42. Tim Anderson and D.E. Wittkower, Why Legally Downloading Files is Immoral