Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1Justice (2011)Justice (2011) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2011Michael Sandel takes arguments about the right thing to do into the familiar world of prices, promises, and public decisions. Read him when a dispute about fairness feels stuck. His cases make it easier to identify which principle someone is asking everybody else to live by.0
  2. 2How to Be Perfect (2022)How to Be Perfect (2022) 9.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2022Michael Schur treats the small temptation to do the convenient thing as a legitimate philosophical problem. He brings ideas about character, consequences, and duties into the same conversation, with enough room for the embarrassing ways we fall short of all three.0
  3. 3Would You Kill the Fat Man? (2015)Would You Kill the Fat Man? (2015)Published Jan 1, 2015David Edmonds follows the trolley problem through variations that can make the same arithmetic feel morally different. It is a compact way to see what a thought experiment can accomplish. Once you change only one feature of a case, you have to explain why that feature matters.0
  4. 4What We Owe to Each Other (2000)What We Owe to Each Other (2000)Published Jan 1, 2000T. M. Scanlon asks whether you could justify the principle behind an action to the people it affects. His emphasis on what someone could reasonably reject makes this a demanding choice for anyone who wants to understand why a small benefit to many may leave the person bearing the cost with a…0
  5. 5The life you can save (2009)The life you can save (2009) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2009Peter Singer begins with the intuition that you would rescue a drowning child at the expense of your clothes. His argument asks how much that intuition should bind you when the people in danger live far away. Read it for the pressure it puts on the line between an admirable donation and an…0
  6. 6Strangers drowning (2015)Strangers drowning (2015) 8.5/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2015Larissa MacFarquhar reports on people who organize their lives around unusually demanding commitments to strangers. By staying with their families and relationships, she makes the book about the people living with those choices as well as the people they help. It pairs well with a more abstract…0
  7. 7Why some things should not be for sale (2008)Why some things should not be for sale (2008)Published Jan 1, 2008Debra Satz asks when the conditions of a sale make a market harmful. Cases involving labor and human organs give her a way to examine who has room to refuse and what a transaction does to the people involved. Choose it when an appeal to consent leaves the circumstances of consent unexplained.0
  8. 8The ethics of ambiguity (1962)The ethics of ambiguity (1962)Published Jan 1, 1962For Simone de Beauvoir, moral choices begin in a world where our freedom depends in part on what others are free to do. Her account gives weight to situations with limited options. It is especially worth reading when an inspiring appeal to individual choice leaves the people who cannot exercise it…0
  9. 9The Sovereignty of Good (1967)The Sovereignty of Good (1967)Published Jan 1, 1967Iris Murdoch imagines a mother-in-law who revises the way she sees her daughter-in-law without making a public display of it. The example makes moral attention something you can practice before the moment of action. Read it for a change of mind that starts with noticing the part your own…0
  10. 10Moral Luck (1982)Moral Luck (1982)Published Jan 1, 1982Bernard Williams considers how the outcome of a choice can alter the way it looks in hindsight. In the title essay, an imagined Gauguin gambles on an artistic life at a cost to others. The question is what kind of success could justify leaving and which claims it would leave unsettled.0