The moral life : an introductory reader in ethics and literature / [compiled by] Louis P. Pojman.

Includes bibliographical references.

PART I. THE NATURE OF MORALITY: GOOD AND EVIL -- What is the purpose of morality? -- Lord of the flies: a moral allegory / William Golding -- On the nature and purpose of morality: reflections on William Golding's Lord of the flies / Louis P. Pojman -- On the state of nature / Thomas Hobbes -- Good and evil -- Billy Budd / Herman Melville -- Why is there evil? / Fyodor Dostoevsky -- Sophie's choice / William Styron -- New slavery / Kevin Bales -- From cruelty to goodness / Philip Hallie -- Wickedness / Stanley Benn -- Beyond good and evil / Friedrich Nietzsche -- On the origin of good and evil / Richard Taylor -- Is everything relative? -- Custom is king / Herodotus -- Case for moral relativism / Ruth Benedict -- Case against moral relativism / Louis P. Pojman -- Judge not? / Jean Bethke Elshtain -- Enemy of the people / Henrick Ibsen -- PART II. MORAL THEORIES AND MORAL CHARACTER -- Utilitarianism -- Seaman Holmes and the longboat of William Brown, reported by John William Wallace -- Classical utilitarianism / Jeremy Bentham -- Defense of utilitarianism / Kai Nielsen -- Against utilitarianism / Bernard Williams -- Ones who walk away from Omelas / Ursula Le Guin -- Utilitarian social engineer and the savage / Aldous Huxley -- Deontological ethics -- Moral law / Immanuel Kant -- Intuitionism / W.D. Ross -- Deep beauty of the golden rule / R.M. MacIver -- Critique of the golden rule / Richard Whatley -- Horseman in the sky / Ambrose Bierce -- Evil of lying / Charles Fried -- Jury of her peers / Susan Glaspell -- Does morality depend on religion? / Plato -- Moral luck / Thomas Nagel -- Virtue ethics -- Bishop and the candlesticks / Victor Hugo -- Virtue ethics / Aristotle -- Virtue and the moral life / Bernard Mayo -- Great stone face / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Critique of virtue-based ethical systems / William Frankena -- Virtue and vices -- Sermon on the mount; Good samaritan / Jesus of Nazareth -- How much land does a man need? / Leo Tolstoy -- Jealousy, malice, and ingratitude / Immanuel Kant -- Moral cowardice / Martin Gansberg -- Three days to see: gratitude / Helen Keller -- Stoic catechism / Epictetus and others -- In consolation to his wife: equanimity / Plutarch -- World of Epictetus: courage and endurance / Vice Admiral James Stockdale -- Story of David and Bathsheba: lust -- Where love is, there is God: love / Leo Tolstoy -- Reflections on suffering / Bertrand Russell -- Volunteer at Auschwitz: altruism / Charles Colson -- PART III. MORAL ISSUES -- Ethics and egoism: why should we be moral? -- Ring of Gyges / Plato -- In defense of ethical egoism / Ayn Rand -- Egoism and altruism: a critique of Ayn Rand / Louis P. Pojman -- Critique of ethical egoism / James Rachels -- Does life have meaning? -- Good Brahmin / Voltaire -- Hedonism / Epicurus -- Life is absurd / Albert Camus -- Religion gives meaning to life / Lois Hope Walker -- Human search for meaning: reflections on Auschwtiz / Viktor Frankl -- Four noble truths / Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha -- Experience machine / Robert Nozick -- Freedom, autonomy, and self-respect -- I have a dream / Martin Luther King, Jr. -- Graduation / Maya Angelou -- Experiment in autonomy / Stanley Milgram -- Existentialism is a humanism / Jean-Paul Sartre -- Servility and self-respect / Thomas E. Hill, Jr. -- Who is the autonomous man? / John Benson -- Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut -- PART IV. APPLIED ETHICS: MORAL PROBLEMS -- Sex, love, and marriage -- Pansexuality / John Barth -- On the place of sex in human existence / Immanuel Kant -- Monogamy: a critique / John McMurtry -- Marriage, love, and procreation: a critique of McMurtry / Michael D. Bayles -- What's wrong with adultery? / Bonnie Steinbock -- We have no "right to happiness" / C.S. Lewis -- Licensing parents / Hugh LaFollette -- Is abortion morally permissible? -- Abortion is not morally permissible / John T. Noonan, Jr. -- Abortion is morally permissible / Mary Anne Warren -- Moderate position: beyond the personhood argument / Jane English -- Substance abuse: drugs and alcohol -- On liberty / John Stuart Mill -- Drugs should be legalized / Gore Vidal -- Drugs should not be legalized / William Bennett -- On drinking / Yoshida Kenko -- Drunk driving / Bonnie Steinbock -- Our duties to animals -- Shooting an elephant / George Orwell -- We have only indirect duties to animals / Immanuel Kant -- Animal liberation: all animals are equal / Peter Singer -- Case against animal rights / Carl Cohen -- Our duties to the environment -- On mankind's power over nature / Sophocles -- What has posterity ever done for me? / Robert Heilbroner -- Tragedy of the commons / Garrett Hardin -- People or penguins: the case for optimal pollution / William F. Baxter -- International justice and the threat of terrorism -- God's command to destroy Jericho and Ai -- Compassion and terror / Martha C. Nussbaum -- Cosmopolitan response to terrorism / Louis P. Pojman.