The Story Of Ethics: Fulfilling Our Human Nature

This brief introduction to the history of ethics engages readers in a compelling, refreshing study of the question, "Why be moral?" Kelly James Clark and Anne Poortenga situate the study of ethics within the context of more fundamental questions: "What kind of persons are human beings?" and "What kind of life should we live to fulfill ourselves as persons?" Clark and Poortenga trace the philosophic history of how these questions have been answered, beginning with Plato and Aristotle and extending to contemporary thinkers, such as Carol Gilligan, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty. Features of "The Story of Ethics: "

• Engaging writing style
• Historical overviews of major ethical theories
• Focused attention on key ethical theorists, including Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, Mill, and Nietzsche, among others
• Written as a coherent whole, which nevertheless can be broken into separate, easily assignable sections.

This book provides readers with an excellent introduction to the history of ethics. The authors examine the ethical philosophies of prominent Western thinkers -- from the ancients through the twentieth century -- within the context of their views of human nature and human fulfillment. They do so in a way that is both accessible and engaging without sacrificing the profundity of the issues raised. A five-part organization covers the Homeric tradition, the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Christianity, Neoplatonism, Augustine, the Euthyphro problem, revolutions and reformations, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Mary Wollstonecraft, Hegelianism and Materialism, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, Soren Kierkegaard, Darwinism, Friedrich Nietzsche, G. E. Moore, A.J. Ayer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Elizabeth Anscombe, John Rawls, Alasdair Maclntyre, Carol Gilligan, Richard Rorty, and a conclusion about human nature, morality & fulfillment.