The Routledge Companion to Ethics

`The Routledge Companion to Ethics is a great resource for students interested in ethics and will also make a first-rate reference volume for philosophers working in ethics. It covers an impressive range of topics, going well beyond entries on standard normative ethical theories and meta-ethical approaches to normativity. The history of ethics is particularly well represented and this volume is sure to set a very high standard for future collections.'-Julia Driver, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

`Written by leaders in the field, and with depth as well as breadth, this is the ideal companion for anyone with an interest in philosophical ethics.'- Roger Crisp, St. Anne's College, Oxford

`This marvellous book covers theoretical and practical aspects of ethics with admirable intelligence and freshness. As useful as it is enjoyable, it is sure to become an indispensible companion.'- Samantha Vice, Rhodes University, South Africa

`This volume amply satisfies its remarkably ambitious objectives. Its coverage of the field of ethics is as broad as feasible, while its in-depth discussions of various topics within that field are characteristically incisive, informative, and at the cutting edge of contemporary thinking.'- Richard Joyce, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

The Companion opens with a comprehensive historical overview of ethics, including chapters on Plato, Aristotle, Hume, and Kant, and ethical thinking in China, India and the Arabic tradition. The second part covers the domain of meta-ethics. The third part covers important challenges to ethics from the fields of anthropology, psychology, sociobiology and economics. The fourth and fifth sections cover competing theories of ethics and the nature of morality respectively, with entries on consequentialism, Kantian morality, virtue ethics, relativism, evil, and responsibility amongst many others. A comprehensive final section includes the most important topics and controversies in applied ethics, such as rights, justice and distribution, the end of life, the environment, poverty, war and terrorism.

The Routledge Companion to Ethics is a superb resource for anyone interested in the subject, whether in philosophy or related disciplines such as politics, education, or law. Fully indexed and cross-referenced, with helpful further reading sections at the end of each chapter, it is ideal for those coming to the field of ethics for the first time as well as readers already familiar with the subject.

John Skorupski is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. His interests are in moral and political philosophy, meta-ethics, and epistemology. His books include John Stuart Mill (Routledge, 1989), Ethical Explorations (1999), Why Read Mill Today? (Routledge, 2006) and The Domain of Reasons (2010).