Being Good
A Short Introduction to Ethics

This work confronts seven different objections to our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures, and charts a course through the philosophical quicksands that often engulf us. In a godless world, has science unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and aggressive?

It is not only in our dark hours that scepticism, relativism, hypocrisy, and nihilism dog ethics. Whether it is a matter of giving to charity, or sticking to duty, or insisting on our rights, we can be confused, or be paralysed by the fear that our principles are groundless. Many are afraid that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and tribalistic, or competitive and aggressive. Simon Blackburn, author of the best-selling Think, structures this short introduction around these and other threats to ethics. Confronting seven different objections to our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures, he charts a course through the philosophical quicksands that often engulf us. Then, turning to problems of life and death, he shows how we should think about the meaning of life, and how we should mistrust the sound-bite sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates. Finally he offers a critical tour of the ways the philosophical tradition has tried to provide foundations for ethics, from Plato and Aristotle through to contemporary debates.

Preface
List of Illustrations
Introduction
SEVEN THREATS TO ETHICS
1. The Threat of the Death of God
2. The Threat of Relativism
3. The Threat of Egoism
4. The Threat from Evolutionary Theory
5. The Threat of Determinism and Futility
6. The Threat of Unreasonable Demands
7. The Threat of False Consciousness
SOME ETHICAL IDEAS
8. Birth
9. Death
10. Desire and the Meaning of Life
11. Pleasure
12. The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number
13. Freedom from the Bad
14. Freedom and Paternalism
15. Rights and Natural Rights
FOUNDATIONS?
16. Reasons and Foundations
17. Living Well and Doing Good
18. The Categorical Imperative
19. Contracts and Discourse
20. The Common Point of View
21. Confidence Restored
Further Reading
Index