Marincountyfreelibrary Edition Oxford University paperback. 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 debatesĪccess-restricted-item true Addeddate 14:47:20 Boxid IA127108 Camera Canon 5D City Oxford Donor 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 soundbite-sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates. 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.

Simon Blackburn, author of the best-selling Think, structures this short introduction around these and other threats to ethics. Seven threats to ethics: Death of God - Relativism - Egoism - Evolutionary theory - Determinism and futility - Unreasonable demands - False consciousness - Some ethical ideas: Birth - Death - Desire and the meaning of life - Pleasure - Greatest happiness of the greatest number - Freedom from the bad - Freedom and paternalism - Rights and natural rights - Foundations: Reasons and foundations - Being good and living well - Categorical imperative - Contracts and discourse - Common point of view - Confidence restored - Appendix: United Nations' universal declaration of human rights I don't think I'd want to watch this movie unless they gave it some Bill Nye spin and the tag line would have to be something along the lines of ' The Philosophy Guy' (patent pending, but not really).Includes bibliographical references (p. If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be? He'd almost blow out a little of his breathe every time he'd say what, or why during the introduction where both those words are frequently used. The narrator did a spectacular job but something a lot of people could probably look past but I couldn't was that he kept over-pronouncing(idk if this is a real word) the letter 'h' in 'wh' words.

The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell is another recommended starting point for the subject of Philosophy by /r/philosophy, I haven't gotten around to giving it a read but I hope to soon.ĭid Norman Dietz do a good job differentiating all the characters? How? What other book might you compare Think to and why? I'm not sure this is the type of book that'd garner a second listen from most readers unless there was something you didn't quite understand, but that's just my opinion and I can't speak for anyone else.

A Highly Recommended Starting Point for Philosophy

Think simon blackburn audiobook