Leading a principled existence demands grappling with questions whose answers are frequently unclear and examining the values that we most vigorously defend. Even as we contend with the travails of daily life, we are constantly confronted with issues of moral import. Where other branches of Western philosophy seek to comprehend universal truths that often seem far-removed from routine activity, ethics begins with personal judgments and individual action. These penetrative books consider the key developments in thinking on Western ethics and the thinkers throughout time who have challenged us to re-evaluate the standards we use to distinguish between right and wrong and the moral codes that form the backbone of human behavior. Comprehensive treatment of normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics Each concept is contextualized with in-depth comparisons between thinkers and theories Informative sidebars examine numerous related concepts
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