Introductory works on ethics

I want to list a couple of good resources for the person who would like to study ethics. Ethics is a subject I think everyone should devote much time and effort to. Deciding what is right or wrong is probably the most important decision to decide. It is not something people should take lightly and just "go with their gut" or "go with what their parents believe" or "go with what their religion teaches" or "go with what most of society believes." However, our gut, religion, parents, and society, are not as reliable as sound argument.

One might say that studying ethics is pointless. Why read papers on abortion or capital punishment? There's always a way out of every argument and there's always an excuse to give on why one won't accept a given argument. What makes little sense is even if studying ethics was pointless, these people will simply resort to one of the above ways of deciding what is right or wrong. I'll use my gut or what a thousand-year-old text says or what my parents/society has taught me, etc.

I also see little merit in the idea that "there is always a way out of every argument. Therefore, there is no point to looking at both sides of the issue because in the end, you just believe what you want anways." I have a hard time believing this because I have found it to be false time and time again. I have had my mind changed by arguments that people have given. I have been able to recognize my mistakes by looking into the issue. I have also been able to strengthen my beliefs by doing the same. It is often the people who have never looked into ethical issues substantially who say this. This shows that they are simply not concerned with the truth and are to blame for it.

So, it is true that there may be a response one can always give to an argument. The question, however, is whether it is a good or bad response. The question is not whether there exists arguments, but whether they are good or bad arguments. If you look at people debating issues and say, "Oh no this is too hard for me, everyone is arguing. There can't be any use in looking into this anymore," then you have given up on the truth.

It is good to study ethics mainly because of the danger of living a lie. I would hate to have lived my life during the Civil War fighting for slavery, believing with all my heart that it was my duty. I would hate to have been an accomplice in the Holocaust, believing that God really did command me to kill the Jews. I would hate to have ruined innocent lives simply because I was too blind to see the truth.

So, I do not want to cause any undue harm to others or to myself. In being concerned with this, as I imagine most others are as well, this gives me good reason to study ethics and to, as honestly as I can, look at both sides of any given issue. I encourage you to do the same.

Now for the list of good introductory works.

Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong ,Fifth Edition by Pojman is my favorite introduction. A cheaper version of the book, the fourth edition, is available here.

Alonzo Fyfe's online introduction can be viewed here, his is extremely good as well.

For a good set of introductory ethical readings, Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, Seventh Edition is recommended. Here is a link to the cheaper sixth edition. Here is a link to the fifth edition, which seems to be selling for about ten bucks cheaper.

On a sidenote, I really want to get some philosophy t-shirts. I would like them to be fairly nice and say things like "Aristotle" on the front and perhaps a quote on the back. Then, I could find the philosopher's birthdays and wear the shirt on that day and it would be Aristotle Day or Kant Day. Wouldn't that be neat?