Contemporary Ethics Taking Account of Utilitarianism [Paperback]

Aimed at undergraduates, Contemporary Ethics presupposes little or no familiarity with ethics and is written in a clear and engaging style. It provides students with a sympathetic but critical guide to utilitarianism, explaining its different forms and exploring the debates it has spawned. The book leads students through a number of current issues in contemporary ethics that are connected to controversies over and within utilitarianism. At the same time, it uses utilitarianism to introduce students to ethics as a subject. In these ways, the book is not only a guide to utilitarianism, but also an introduction to some standard problems of ethics and to several important topics in contemporary ethical theory.Preface and Acknowledgments.

1. Introducing Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism, Law and Society.

Understanding Utilitarianism.

Two Rival Nonconsequentialist Theories.

The Deathbed Promise.

Consequences, Actual and Probable.

Average versus Total Happiness.

2. Welfare, Happiness, and the Good. .

Bentham's Hedonism.

Mill's View of Pleasure and Happiness.

A Problem for Mental-State Accounts of Well-Being.

Well-Being as the Satisfaction of Desire.

Objective Theories of WellBeing.

Where This Lack of Consensus Leaves Utilitarianism.

3. Arguing for Utilitarianism.

Bentham and the Principle of Utility.

Mill: Proof and Sentiment.

Self-Evidence and the Language of Morality.

Utilitarianism and Commonsense Morality.

The Case against Deontology.

The Appeal of Utilitarianism.

4. Objections to Utilital•