The History of Western Ethics

Gr 9 Up—This history moves chronologically from ancient legal codes to modern questions pertaining to the environment, human rights, and bioethics. Along the way, readers are effectively introduced to monumental thinkers, including Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, Jesus, Machiavelli, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx, and Jean-Paul Sartre. A handful of useful sidebars on subjects from moral theology to the just war and scattered, well-captioned gray-toned photos are included. The concluding chapter, "Contemporary Ethics," considers the diverse topics of metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Solidly written, this work, when paired with Bryan Magee's The Story of Philosophy (1998) and The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained, edited by Will Buckingham, et al (2011, both DK), nicely rounds out most philosophy collections.—Brian Odom, Pelham Public Library, AL