Ethics: A Very Short Introduction

Elementaire Deeltjes #79

by Simon Blackburn

Very Short Introductions Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring

Our self-image as moral, well-behaved creatures is dogged by scepticism, relativism, hypocrisy, and nihilism, and by the fear that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish and tribalistic, or competitive and aggressive. Here, Simon Blackburn tackles the major moral questions surrounding birth, death, happiness, desire, and freedom, showing us how we should think about the meaning of life, and why we should mistrust the soundbite-sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates.

This second edition of the Very Short Introduction on Ethics has revised and updated aspects of the original to reflect changing times and mores. It highlights the importance of an understanding of approaches to ethics and its foundations, confronted as we are with a fluid and uncertain world of eroding trust, swirling conspiracy theories, and a dismaying loss of respect in public discourse.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Ebooks, School, Reference

128 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Simon Blackburn FBA is an English academic philosopher known for his work in metaethics, where he defends quasi-realism, and in the philosophy of language; more recently, he has gained a large general audience from his efforts to popularise philosophy.

He retired as the professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 2011, but remains a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, teaching every fall semester. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a member of the professoriate of New College of the Humanities. He was previously a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford and has also taught full-time at the University of North Carolina as an Edna J. Koury Professor. He is a former president of the Aristotelian Society, having served the 2009–2010 term. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002 and a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008.

Reviews

[Ryan Scicluna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book but as it states in the title it is a very Short introduction. It has a very good starting point for all those willing to start immersing themselves in the philosophy of ethics. However reading this book alone it is not enough. You must read other books about the subject. Here I listed a list of suggested further reading which in this case if you are really interested into the subject you must at least read a couple more books from.

Suggested Further Reading:

Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche
Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong John Mackie
Ethics and the limits of Philosophy Bernard Williams
After Virtue Alasdair MacIntyre
Relitivism and Moral Objectivity G.Harman and J.J. Thomson
Moral Relativity David Wong
Women, Culture, and Development Martha Nussbaum and Jonathan Glover
Living High and Letting Die Peter Unger
The Limits of Morality Shelly Kagan
Moral Luck Bernard Williams
The Lor dof the Flies William Golding
Babeltower A.S. Byatt
The Problem of Abortion Susan Dwyer and Joel Feinberg
Civilisation and its Discontents Sigmund Freud
Mortal Questions Thomas Nagel
Thinking Clearly about Death Jay Rosenberg
Death, Desire and Loss Jonathan Dollimore
The Morality of Happiness Julia Annas
Utilitatianism John Stuart Mill
Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method and Point R.M. Hare
Nonsense upon Stilts: Bentham, Burke and Marx on the Rights of Man Jeremy Waldron
Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant's Moral Theory Thoams Hill
On Virtu Ethics Posalind Hursthouse
The Evolution of the Social Contract Brian Skyrms
Morals by Agreement David Gauthier
What We Owe to Each Other T.M. Scanlon
The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory Hugh LaFollette
Ethics and Economics Elizabeth Anderson
Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle
An Intorduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation Jeremy Bentham
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge Goerge Berkley
Ruling Passions Simon Blackburn
Think Simon Blackburn
Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel Joseph Butler
The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins
The Extant Remains Epicurus
Essential Works of Foucault Michel Foucault
The Phenomenology of Spirit G.W.F. Hegel
The Histories Herodotus
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion David Hume
Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals David Hume
Essays Moral, Political and Literary David Hume
A Treatise of Human Nature David Hume
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Immanuel Kant
Practical Philosophy Immanuel Kant
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding John Locke
A System of Logic John Stuart Mill
Basic Writings Friedrich Nietzsche
Euthyphro Plato
Conjectures and Refutations Karl Popper
The Foundations of Mathematics F.P. Ramsey
A Thoery of Justice John Rawls
Practical Ethics Peter Singer
The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith
Jumpers Tom Stoppard
Sources of the Self Charles Taylor
History of he Peloponnesian War Thucydides
The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblen
The Mating Season P.G. Wodehouse

[Amirography · Rating 1 out of 5]

I believe, when a scholar is expected to write a book with "Very short Introduction" In its name and is published by Oxford University Press, the earlier mentioned scholar should at least write arguments against thesis he/she had read.

Any scholar (be they are student or professor) would know that Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, not just only not mention "Humans should act egoistically because genes do" rather he emphasized that this just tells how genes function. Not how we are or how we ought to be. Also, I challenge the writer to show any respect full figure in science that directly or indirectly, we should act as our biological history, or other animals. Especially when most zoologists and animal experts show that ethics in most animals are comparable to humans and we are not that many ethicists in comparison.

I would email my criticism to Simon Blackburn about this matter, but apparently, he wouldn't be reading my emails as he has shown to be avoidant about reading scientific literature that might look as though they do not meet his philosophical premises.

I found this book hardly ironic, as I find publishing such a poor written essay, ethically compromising at best.

[Richard Swan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very poor. Sloppy thinking with, unforgivably, sloppy expression. On p. 3 he says ‘An ethical climate is a different thing from a moralistic one’, but never defines either ethics or morals or the distinction between them. Sentences like ‘The bad news is that we will accord authority to anyone in a white coat’ are patronising and false, while any author who can write ‘it is usually not at all certain that’ should be taken outside and edited.

[Daphne]

DNF @ 70%

I don't consider myself an expert on ethics or super knowledgeable on philosophy in general, but I think I know too much to really enjoy this book. To be fair, this is an introductory text, so I don't blame the author.

The one real critique I have for the book was that it wasn't presented impartially. When the author presented critiques of different ethical theories, he acted like the critiques completely took down the theory and that no sane person would have an opinion that was different from his. I don't know if that was his intention, but he came off as though he was convinced that his opinions were the only correct ones out there.

[Muhamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my opinion, the author did a good job of presenting important ethical discussions (mainly western). However, more than being an overview and a summary, the author presents his own views as the correct ones. One could say that's how it should be. But usually with introductory books I prefer to have the discussions without the author telling us who is right.

[lew:) · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars


Ugh. Unfortunately did not enjoy this one. I am a huge fan of the "Very Short Introduction" series, but this one did not connect for me.

Firstly, it takes the "very short" extremely literally and at less than a hundred pages, it reads more as a rambling essay instead of a short, thesis-based novella.

Secondly, while I thought there were parts of this essay that were extremely interesting, nothing was expanded upon. As someone who knows pretty much nothing about the "ethics debate" (hence why I picked up this book), I was excited to see names like Kant and Nietzsche referenced, only for their ideas and the pushback to their ideas never expanded upon. It felt as though the author assumed the reader already had a basic understanding of these ethical questions, which again please see the title of this book??



SIDE NOTE: I'm super sick of Christianity being the only religion these "morality bros" want to criticize. It's a book about ethics, I get that religion is going to be brought up; most Western (and Eastern!!!) peoples base their ethics/morals on their religious beliefs. I would just appreciate if bros writing about this stuff would fairly critique **all** religions if they really have such a problem with it, not just Christianity. That is all.

[Vivek KuRa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I listed to the audiobook version. I should have picked up the real book. Book was jargon heavy with lot of uncontextualized abstract complex concepts which I found very difficult to follow. Need to find a easy to approach book for beginners.

[M. Ashraf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ethics
A Very Short Introduction #80
Simon Blackburn

I think it is not an into to Ethics but rather a discussion through some of the ethical and moral questions we may face in our life without getting that deeper into philosophy and without being impartial about some topics.
I find it to be a good book though. I enjoyed reading it.

Human beings are ethical animals. I do not mean that we naturally behave particularly well, nor that we are endlessly telling each other what to do. But we grade and evaluate, and compare and admire, and claim and justify. We do not just ‘prefer’ this or that, in isolation. We prefer that our preferences are shared; we turn them into demands on each other. Events endlessly adjust our sense of responsibility, our guilt and shame, and our sense of our own worth and that of others. We hope for lives whose story leaves us looking admirable; we like our weaknesses to be hidden and deniable. Drama, literature, and poetry all work out ideas of standards of behavior and their consequences.

For many people, ethics is not only tied up with religion but is completely settled by it. Such people do not need to think too much about ethics, because there is an authoritative code of instructions,
a handbook of how to live. It is the word of Heaven or the will of a Being greater than ourselves.

religion is not the foundation of ethics, but its showcase or its symbolic expression.
we drape our own standards with the stories of divine origin as a way of asserting their authority. We do not just have a standard of conduct that forbids, say, murder, but we have mythological historical examples in which God expressed his displeasure at cases of murder.

There are only the different truths of different communities. This is the idea of relativism.

What is just or right in the eyes of one person may not be so in the eyes of another, and neither side can claim real truth, unique truth, for its particular rules.

If we are good, it may be because we were never tempted enough, or frightened enough, or put in
desperate enough need.

[Blake · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has vanquished my hopes in Blackburn's treatment of ethics. The criticism goes not for his brevity, but to his innaccuracy in attempts to properly represent the threats to an objectivist ethics and as well the actual strengths of other moral cognitivisms.

His stated project is to dispel the myths regarding moral philosophy, but in this book he perpetuates them. His statement of moral relativism is what you would expect to find in media bites, not the works of a moral philosopher. Given his stated intention, one would expect him to opt for the explanation over condemnation, but no, he drops a normative thesis (tolerance, of course) into the relativist's mix and in so doing misrepresents not only the relativist's position, but her opponent's in the form of objectivism.

Blackburn is, of course, a meta-ethical quasi-realist, whose semantic theory contains a realist element, but primarily maintains the expressivist thesis. So those expecting him to fairly represent his opponents, in a book aimed at those who are new to moral philosophy and likely to be swayed by his arguments, will be disappointed.

The middle of the book deals with normative ethics and does so in a similar, but slightly more acrid style. Blackburn's normative thesis has some unique features that almost saved the book in my opinion, but framed as they were by a confused promise to set the public understanding of ethics free from the usual kind of misunderstandings and the failure to deliver on that promise (coupled with an apparent joy in that failure) leaves the book's whole project a mess of inconsistent philosophy.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Small little book that summarizes the most prominent ethical theories. As someone who has only recently delved into philosophy I’m not sure if Blackburn’s profiles accurately portray the essence of philosophical theories, but the breadth of this book is adequate for a beginner student of philosophy.

[Reza Khabook · Rating 2 out of 5]

A issue short introduction! Just good for opening your eyes on issues!

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprised how comprehensive this treatment was in this short format

[Aafke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gebrek aan structuur maakte het lastig voor mij om nu te begrijpen waar we heen gingen, ook al is de stof goed te begrijpen. Daarnaast denk ik dat hij beter een boek over David Hume had kunnen schrijven, hij blijkt nogal fan te zijn van diens ideeën, die telkens worden aangehaald als een betere visie op een bepaald ethisch vraagstuk. Nogal een biased introductie van ethiek

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really upset I read the whole thing because it was so bad

[Hamza Razzak · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author prioritizes a thematic deconstruction of moral skepticism and human desire over a singular, driving thesis, often leaving his core stance feeling diffused. Furthermore, the work bypasses a traditional historical timeline, opting instead for a non-chronological analysis that jumps between classical and modern philosophical problems to illustrate conceptual evolution of ethics

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

More an introduction to ethical issues than ethics itself. I listened to this on Audible; it was a mistake. I probably need to read the words to attempt to understand philosophy.

[Juan "El más guapo" Esteban · Rating 3 out of 5]

Debería llamarse: “Una breve introducción a *mi* ética, para progresistas ateos que quieran dar por sentado su propio sistema de valores”. Mucho de lo que dice es basura y justifica solo lo que le interesa, pero no escribe mal y el libro no es una completa perdida de tiempo. Ahora, el propósito del libro lo cumple a medias y como le da la gana.

[Mahdieh Ebrahimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

به نظرم کتاب خیلی خوبی بود و بخش‌های مختلفش بسیار آموزنده بود به خصوص بحث آخر کتاب رو در مورد مسئله سقط جنین رو خیلی دوست داشتم و دیدگاه اخلاقی مسئله رو خیلی خوب نقل کرده بود.

[Adam Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love these short introductions, but their space limitations are obvious, so that take that into account in this review. I am particularly educated in the Christian ethical tradition, so I was somewhat frustrated that Blackburn rejected religiously founded ethics quite glibly in the first section, with largely straw-man critique, but this is forgivable as it is not the author's perspective. With deity based ethics dismissed, he leads readers through possible retorts that this undermines ethical foundations thus allowing all ethical perspectives to stand equally valid; his format that took these concerns on straightforwardly were the principle reason I was interested in this work, even more so than his thoughts on nihilism. He dismissed the relativism critique rather shorthandly since he has an entire section on foundations to close the book. This was where I was expecting to find some meat to justify the dismissal of religious ethics and its accompanying concerns of moral relativism, but I was a bit disappointed. His short summaries of Kant and Rawls' attempts to ground ethics rationally are commendable, though he acknowledges that they still seem to come up short. In the end, he seems to argue that there is enough in common humanity to ground ethics reasonably, if not Reasonably. I struggled to get an answer for how ethical disputes might be settled reasonably if different groups have competing conceptions of what is "good." This to me is a key question of ethics, how can we make judgments about what is right or good that can be backed by more than our social or violent power to enforce them? Blackburn argues that humanity largely agrees on such "unpretentious things" as "Happiness is preferable to misery, and dignity is better than humiliation. It is bad that people suffer, and worse if a culture turns a blind eye to their suffering. Death is worse than life; the attempt to find a common point of view is better than manipulative contempt for it." I think only recently of popular American debates about torture, and it does not seem at all clear that American humans (much less a wider sampling of human cultures) can agree on several of these things. And if humanity did have some kind of mysterious common moral center as Blackburn seems to believe, wouldn't that open up a whole other set of metaphysical questions about how/why this came to be or what it might be in the future? Overall, not a bad "short introduction," he does hit several hot button ethical issues like abortion and violence, and covers a number of important names in ethics such as Aristotle, Hume, Locke, and Rawls. As Christian and a historian, I'd like to have seen some engagement with folks like Augustine and Aquinas, who have profound influence in the Western tradition whether one agrees or not, but again, it's a short introduction so cuts must be made.

[Arno Mosikyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps fewer of us are sensitive to what we might call the moral or ethical environment. This is the surrounding climate of ideas about how to live.

An idea in this sense is a tendency to accept routes of thought and feeling that we may not recognize in ourselves, or even be able to articulate. Yet such dispositions rule the social and political world.

An ethical climate is a different thing from a moralistic one. Indeed, one of the marks of an ethical climate may be hostility to moralizing, which is somehow out of place or bad form. Thinking that will itself be a something that affects the way we live our lives. So, for instance, one peculiarity of our present climate is that we care much more about our rights than about our ‘good’.

Human beings are ethical animals. I do not mean that we naturally behave particularly well, nor that we are endlessly telling each other what to do. But we grade and evaluate, and compare and admire, and claim and justify.

For many people, ethics is not only tied up with religion, but is completely settled by it. Such people do not need to think too much about ethics, because there is an authoritative code of instructions, a handbook of how to live.

The detour through an external god, then, seems worse than irrelevant. It seems to distort the very idea of a standard of conduct. As the moral philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1824) put it, it encourages us to act in accordance with a rule, but only because of fear of punishment or some other incentive; whereas what we really want is for people to act out of respect for a rule. This is what true virtue requires.

The alternative suggested by Plato’s dialogue is that religion gives a mythical clothing and mythical authority to a morality that is just there to begin with.

In this analysis, religion is not the foundation of ethics, but its showcase or its symbolic expression.

Religion on this account is not the source of standards of behaviour, but a projection of them, made precisely in order to dress them up with an absolute authority.

The ‘freshman relativist’ is a nightmare figure of introductory classes in ethics, rather like the village atheist (but what’s so good about village theism?).

If everybody needs the rule that there should be some rule, that itself represents a universal standard. It can then be suggested that the core of ethics is universal in just this way.

For human beings, there is no living without standards of living.

We are egoists, altruism doesn’t exist, ethics is only a fig-leaf for selfish strategies, we are all conditioned, women are nurturing, men are rapists, we care above all for our genes.

The core of morality, then, lies not in what we do, but in our motives in doing it: ‘When moral worth is at issue, what counts is not actions, which one sees, but those inner principles of action that one does not see.

[Shazzan Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to note, for those of you who are not aware, that Ethics: A Very Short Introduction is pretty much the same as Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics.
This book is divided into three major sections and a total of twenty-one chapters.
In the first section, Blackburn considers some threats to or misconceptions of ethics. The topics discussed included religious morality, relativism, evolutionary ethics. According to Blackburn, these concepts either misrepresent ethics or they seem to suggest that ethics is impossible. Perhaps the most interesting part in this section, for me at least, was the letter to 'Dr. Laura'
In the second section, Blackburn seems to have selected an arbitrary list of ethical ideas and issues to discusses. Here ideas discussed included abortion, murder, utilitarianism ('greatest happiness of the greatest number'). In this section, his discussion on natural rights and what does it mean to have natural rights was very engaging.
The final section was spent on some of the foundations of ethics various philosophers have come up with in the past. The ideas discussed in this section were Aristotle's virtue ethics, Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, and John Rawls "Justice as Fairness."
This book is a very brief and concise look at some of the major themes and issues concerning ethics in philosophy. It devotes a lot of space to practical and pressing issues. I decided to give it four stars because it had a certain lack of coherence and structure. It was hard to grasp the big idea or theme from each section.
Regardless, I would certainly recommend this book to others.

[Zaid Zain · Rating 2 out of 5]

2021 #5

Ethics, A Very Short Introduction
Simon Blackburn

Who this book is for: For people who want to get to know more about ethics, from the perspective of Western philosophy.

Why am I reading this book?: To try to better understand the core module subject I'm taking.

What I like about the book: Part One: The Seven Threats to Ethics

What I don't like about the book: Unlike the other books in the VSI series, this one would require some background knowledge in the topic before delving into it. In that sense, this is not a suitable introductory book, IMO.

Will I read this again?: Maybe. Some topics discussed are timeless and contemporary, may require a reread some time in the future.

Rating: 2/5 Don't buy, just borrow from the library. Thank fully mine is a library copy.

[Beatriz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não estava à espera que esta leitura me agradasse. Comecei a ler a introdução à ética de Blackburn sem expectativas, mas acabei por gostar da organização do livro e de como o autor coloca em análise questões do dia-a-dia, sob o escrutínio de teorias de pensadores muito afamados.
Na verdade, qualquer leitor que tenha estudado Filosofia na escola já terá conhecimento da maioria dos conteúdos expostos. O que é, de facto, mais relevante, aquilo que devo destacar é a capacidade de sintetização e compilação de Blackburn.
O ponto mais fraco que tenho a apontar acerca desta introdução à ética é o ocasional devaneio do autor, o que me deixou algumas vezes a pensar "mas o que é que isto tem que ver com o assunto?".
Recomendo o livro a novos alunos de ciências sociais ou humanas.

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come, possibly.

Or, briefly, one of the commanders on base saw me reading On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century and wanted a trade. I'm flattered and happy because it's nice that someone supports my nerdy endevours durng guard duty.

The thing is, I like to think I'm not a beginner and as such, I feel comfortable to criticize and say that it's a basic book, it doesn't devlve deep enough into the ethical issues and I feel like I'm not getting the whole picture.

All in all, a nice read but not much more.

[Ariel Pontes · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book presents interesting contemporary ethical debates and how they relate to some more theoretical philosophical ideas. Although I appreciate this type of approach in principle, in the case of this book it was extremely chaotic. The subjects were approached without any meaningful order, and a plethora of subjects and concepts were scratched superficially without ever giving the sensation that a conclusion was reached or that the core ideas of a theory were presented in a coherent way. It felt like a long rant about the issues of today. Sometimes it was interesting, but I expected a lot more structure from a book in this series.

[ياسمين خليفة · Rating 3 out of 5]

مقدمة صغيرة عن الاخلاق كتاب من اصدار اكسفورد من السلسلة الشهيرة very short introduction
الكتاب لم يتحدث فقط عن الاخلاق وتعريفها ولكنه فتح موضوعات كثيرة عن الحرية وحقوق الانسان والدين مستعينا بفلاسفة كثيرين منهم أرسطو وهيوم وهيجل موضوع الاخلاق معقد وكانت هناك بعض الفقرات صعبة بالنسبة لي ولم يعجبني هجوم الكاتب على الأديان واستهانته بها ولكن الجانب الايجابي من الكتاب هو انه حثني على التفكير في الموضوعات التي طرحها كما حثني على قراءة أعمال الفلاسفة القدماء

[Arcadia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very concise and accessible introduction to Ethics (spoiler). I enjoyed the arguments of the book more and more as it progressed, however I felt that it was kind of just giving names to moral dilemmas that are already obviously present in day to day life. Might read Kant, ya que Simon Blackburn seems to be such a fan. Thanks Kilius for the recommendation :) It was a good taste of what these intellectual debates include.

[Billie Cotterman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got to page 50 before stopping. This isn't an introduction to Ethics so much as a discussion of problems within ethics. There's no actual introduction to the field of ethics or what ethics even means. Maybe this would be more interesting if I were familiar with the field, but it really just reads like someone's rant. I can't tell what is the author's opinion and what is actual established practice in the field.

[Helga · Rating 2 out of 5]

too unstructured and sloppy for a complete beginner, too glib and superficial if you have any background in the topic

also I bristled at the out-of-touch, upper class british vibe; e.g. he describes the legacy of colonialism as "embarrassing." (must be hard for you, sweaty!) and he claims that workers advocating for "aggressive" wage rises is self-interested in the way that overfishing is.

he has some good zingers & interesting examples, though