Stephen Satris

Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Moral Issues, Expanded

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Taking Sides volumes present current controversial issues in a debate-style format designed to stimulate student interest and develop critical thinking skills. Each issue is thoughtfully framed with Learning Outcomes, an Issue Summary, an Introduction, and an Exploring the Issue section featuring Critical Thinking and Reflection, Is There Common Ground?, and Additional Resources. Taking Sides readers also offer a Topic Guide and an annotated listing of Internet References for further consideration of the issues. An online Instructor's Resource Guide with testing material is available for each volume. Using Taking Sides in the Classroom is also an excellent instructor resource. Visit www.mhhe.com/takingsides for more details.

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Produktdetails

• Taking Sides: Moral Issues
• Verlag: McGraw Hill LLC
• Revised
• Seitenzahl: 400
• Erscheinungstermin: Mai 2012
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 150mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 431g
• ISBN-13: 9780078050138
• ISBN-10: 0078050138
• Artikelnr.: 35711598

Inhaltsangabe

Unit 1 Fundamental Issues in Morality
Issue 1. Is Moral Relativism Correct?
YES: Gilbert Harman, from "Moral Relativism," in Gilbert Harman and
Judith Jarvis Thomson, eds., Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity
(Blackwell, 1996)
NO: Louis P. Pojman, from "The Case Against Moral Relativism," in Louis
P. Pojman and Lewis Vaughn, eds., The Moral Life: An Introductory
Reader in Ethics and Literature (Oxford University Press, 2007)
Philosopher Gilbert Harman argues that relativism is true for
morality-much as Einstein proved it was true for motion. Just as motion
always presupposes some framework in which it occurs (and something can
be in motion relative to one person but not to another), morality too
always presupposes some framework. Louis Pojman carefully distinguishes
what he calls the diversity thesis-that moral rules differ from society
to society-from ethical relativism. The diversity thesis is a
straightforward description of what are acknowledged differences in the
moral beliefs and practices of various human groups. But he argues that
moral relativism does not follow from this diversity.
Issue 2. Does Morality Need Religion?
YES: C. Stephen Layman, from The Shape of the Good: Christian
Reflections on the Foundations of Ethics (University of Notre Dame
Press, 1991)
NO: John Arthur, from "Religion, Morality, and Conscience," in John
Arthur, ed., Morality and Moral Controversies, 4th ed. (Prentice Hall,
1996)
Philosopher C. Stephen Layman argues that morality makes the most sense
from a theistic perspective and that a purely secular perspective is
insufficient. The secular perspective, Layman asserts, does not
adequately deal with secret violations, and it does not allow for the
possibility of fulfillment of people's deepest needs in an afterlife.
Philosopher John Arthur counters that morality is logically independent
of religion, although there are historical connections. Religion, he
believes, is not necessary for moral guidance or moral answers;
morality is social.
Unit 2 Gender, Sex, and Reproduction
Issue 3. Must Sex Involve Commitment?
YES: Vincent C. Punzo, from Reflective Naturalism (Macmillan, 1969)
NO: Alan H. Goldman, from "Plain Sex," Philosophy and Public Affairs
(Spring 1977)
Philosopher Vincent C. Punzo maintains that the special intimacy of sex
requires a serious commitment that is for the most part not required in
other human activities. Philosopher Alan H. Goldman argues for a view
of sex that is completely separate from any cultural or moral ideology
that might be attached to it.
Issue 4. Is Abortion Immoral?
YES: Don Marquis, from "Why Abortion Is Immoral," The Journal of
Philosophy (April 1989)
NO: Margaret Olivia Little, from "The Moral Permissibility of
Abortion," in Andrew I. Cohen and Christopher Heath Wellman, eds.,
Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics (Blackwell Publishing, 2005)
Professor of philosophy Don Marquis argues that abortion is generally
wrong for the same reason that killing an innocent adult human being is
generally wrong: it deprives the individual of a future that he or she
would otherwise have. Margaret Little finds several serious problems
with the way debates are structured concerning abortion. She stresses
three things: first, the continuous development of the earliest stage
of the fertilized egg to the birth of a baby; second, the poverty of
idea theory that pushes us into all-or-nothing talk of rights rather
than values; and third, the fact that it is a pregnant woman who
actively gestates the fetus rather than being merely a passive carrier
of it.
Issue 5. Is It Right to Prohibit Same-Sex Marriage?
YES: Jeff Jordan, from "Is It Wrong to Discriminate on the Basis of
Homosexuality?" Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 26, no. 1 (Spring
1995)
NO: David Boonin, from "Same-Sex Marriage and the Argument from Public
Disagreement," Journal of Social Philosophy, vol. 30, no. 2 (Summer
1999)
Philosopher Jeff Jordan defends the claim that there are situations in
which it is morally permissible to discriminate against homosexuals,
i.e., to treat homosexuals unfavorably. There is a public dilemma (or a
clash of views) concerning the moral status of homosexuality and,
unless something of overriding importance-such as human rights-is at
stake, the government should refrain from favoring one side by publicly
recognizing same-sex marriage. Philosopher David Boonin argues directly
against Jordan that his argument is unsuccessful. He uses Jordan's
argument to address some of the questions that seem to lie, unanswered,
in the background of this issue: In particular, is it correct that
homosexuality is immoral? Do people have a right to marry only certain
other people? Is opposition to same-sex marriage comparable to
opposition to interracial marriage?
Issue 6. Should Human Cloning Be Banned?
YES: Michael J. Sandel, from "The Ethical Implications of Human
Cloning," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (Spring 2005)
NO: John A. Robertson, from "Human Cloning and the Challenge of
Regulation," The New England Journal of Medicine (July 9, 1998)
Political philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that much of the talk
about cloning revolves around a few limited concepts (e.g., rights,
autonomy, and the supposed unnaturalness of asexual reproduction) that
are inadequate and fail to express what is really wrong with cloning.
We need, instead, to address fundamental questions about our stance
toward nature. Law professor John A. Robertson maintains that there
should not be a complete ban on human cloning but that regulatory
policy should be focused on ensuring that it is performed in a
responsible manner.
Unit 3 Law and Society
Issue 7. Is Cloning Pets Ethically Justified?
YES: Autumn Fiester, from "Creating Fido's Twin: Can Pet Cloning Be
Ethically Justified?" Hastings Center Report (July/August 2005)
NO: Hilary Bok, from "Cloning Companion Animals Is Wrong," Journal of
Applied Animal Welfare Science (vol. 5, no. 3, 2002)
Autumn Fiester argues in support of cloning animals (in particular,
people's pets). She emphasizes the point that pet owners really care
about their pets. One result of this is that they spend large amounts
of money on veterinary care for their pets. Cloning their pets could
serve as a useful extension of this idea-and also serve as a positive
demonstration of society in general that individual pets have intrinsic
value and cannot simply be replaced by new pets. Hilary Bok argues that
cloning pets is immoral first of all because it causes great harm to
animals. The animal that results from cloning, for example, is much
more likely to have physical defects than the animal from which it was
cloned. Moreover, the process of cloning itself necessarily involves
harm to other animals (e.g., the animal that will carry the new pet to
term). Finally, the end result simply does not provide pet owners with
what they were looking for.
Issue 8. Should Congress Allow the Buying and Selling of Human Organs?
YES: Lewis Burrows, from "Selling Organs for Transplantation," The
Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine (September 2004)
NO: James F. Childress, from "Should Congress Allow the Buying and
Selling of Human Organs? No," Insight on the News (May 7, 2001)
Lewis Burrows, M.D., begins with the observation that the need for
organs far outstrips the supply: each year, hundreds of patients die
while waiting for transplants. Burrows argues that payment to the donor
(or payment to the donor's family, in cases in which the donor is
deceased) would increase the supply of organs, regulations could
restrain possible abuses, and a payment-for-organs system could meet
relevant medical ethical principles. James F. Childress, professor of
ethics and professor of medical education, argues that a free market
would cause the loss of important altruistic motivations and would turn
organs into commodities; moreover, such an untried market might make
fewer-not more-organs available.
Issue 9. Should Drugs Be Legalized?
YES: Meaghan Cussen and Walter Block, from "Legalize Drugs Now! An
Analysis of the Benefits of Legalized Drugs," American Journal of
Economics and Sociology (July 2000)
NO: Theodore Dalrymple, from "Don't Legalize Drugs," cjonline.com (The
City Journal) (Spring 1997)
Meaghan Cussen (a student in economics) and Walter Block (her economics
professor) argue that the legalization of drugs would provide many
sorts of benefits (e.g., crime would fall, the quality of life in inner
cities would rise, and taxpayers would no longer have to pay for an
unwinnable "war on drugs"). Moreover, the legalization of drugs would
promote the American value of liberty. Theodore Dalrymple stresses the
harm that drugs can do and the danger of "giving up" in the "war on
drugs." He takes issue with most of the claims of the supporters of
legalization, and more generally with Mill's "harm principle": the idea
that in a free society, adults should be permitted to do whatever they
please (provided that they are willing to accept the consequences of
their own actions, and those actions don't cause harm to others).
Issue 10. Is Price Gouging Wrong?
YES: Jeremy Snyder, from "What's the Matter with Price Gouging?"
Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 2 (April 2009)
NO: Matt Zwolinski, from "Price Gouging, Non-Worseness, and
Distributive Justice," Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 2 (April
2009)
Health science professor Jeremy Snyder argues that although there are
arguments from a business perspective which emphasize the economic
benefits of raising prices in the wake of disasters, price gouging in
fact fails to respect persons as persons and is morally wrong insofar
as it undermines fair access to essential goods. Political philosopher
Matt Zwolinski's article is a direct response to Snyder. He argues that
although price gougers may not be morally virtuous agents, they-unlike
most of use-are nevertheless doing something that the victims of the
disaster can benefit from. In addition, he argues that the allocation
of goods via the market is a more just system than other alternatives,
including those suggested by Snyder.
Issue 11. Is Affirmative Action Fair?
YES: Albert G. Mosley, from "Affirmative Action: Pro," in Albert G.
Mosley and Nicholas Capaldi, eds., Affirmative Action: Social Justice
or Unfair Preference? (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996)
NO: Louis P. Pojman, from "The Case Against Affirmative Action,"
International Journal of Applied Philosophy (Spring 1998)
Professor of philosophy Albert G. Mosley argues that affirmative action
is a continuation of the history of black progress since the Brown v.
Board of Education desegregation decision of 1954 and the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. He defends affirmative action as a "benign use of race."
Professor of philosophy Louis P. Pojman contends that affirmative
action violates the moral principle that maintains that each person is
to be treated as an individual, not as representative of a group. He
stresses that individual merit needs to be appreciated and that respect
should be given to each person on an individual basis.
Issue 12. Should the Death Penalty Be Abolished?
YES: Michael Welch, from Punishment in America: Social Control and the
Ironies of Imprisonment (Sage, 1999)
NO: Ernest van den Haag, from "The Death Penalty Once More," U.C. Davis
Law Review (Summer 1985)
Criminologist Michael Welch argues that the death penalty encourages
murder and is applied in a biased and mistake-laden way to growing
groups of people. Much of the recent popular support of capital
punishment is due to ignorance of the facts. Professor of law Ernest
van den Haag argues that the death penalty is entirely in line with the
U.S. Constitution and that although studies of its deterrent effect are
inconclusive, the death penalty is morally justified and should not be
abolished.
Issue 13. Is Torture Ever Justified?
YES: Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke, from "Not Enough Official Torture
in the World?" University of San Francisco Law Review (Spring 2005)
NO: Philip E. Devine, from "What's Wrong with Torture?" International
Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 49 (September 2009)
Bagaric and Clarke remind us, first of all, that torture, although
prohibited by international law, is nevertheless widely practiced. A
rational examination of torture and a consideration of hypothetical
(but realistic) cases show that torture is justifiable in order to
prevent great harm. Torture should be regulated and carefully practiced
as an information-gathering technique in extreme cases. Philosopher
Philip E. Devine argues for an absolute (or virtually absolute)
position against torture. Devine suggests that the wrongness of torture
and the repugnance that we feel toward it ultimately go beyond any
moral theory. In addition, the examination of extreme cases should not
inform our general thought about these and other matters.
Issue 14. Is Physician-Assisted Suicide Wrong?
YES: Richard Doerflinger, from "Assisted Suicide: Pro-Choice or
Anti-Life?" Hastings Center Report (January/February 1989)
NO: David T. Watts and Timothy Howell, from "Assisted Suicide Is Not
Voluntary Active Euthanasia," Journal of the American Geriatrics
Society (October 1992)
Admitting that religiously based grounds for the wrongness of killing
an innocent person are not convincing to many people, Doerflinger
argues on mainly secular grounds having to do with inconsistencies in
the arguments of supporters of physician-assisted suicide. He examines
the idea of autonomy, and the tendency for something like
physician-assisted suicide to spread once it becomes initially accepted
in a limited way. Watts and Howell first claim that it is very
important to distinguish between assisted suicide and voluntary active
euthanasia. Basically, the first of these is suicide or killing
oneself; the second involves being killed by someone else (e.g., a
physician). Watts and Howell argue that most of the opposition to
physician-assisted suicide turns out to be really opposition to
voluntary active euthanasia; furthermore, they argue that
physician-assisted suicide would not have the dire consequence that its
opponents predict.
Unit 4 Human Beings and Other Species
Issue 15. Does Morality Require Vegetarianism?
YES: Michael Allen Fox, from "Why We Should Be Vegetarians,"
International Journal of Applied Philosophy (vol. 20, no. 2, 2006)
NO: Holmes Rolston III, from Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values
in the Natural World (Temple University Press, 1988)
Michael Allen Fox believes that the common practice of eating meat is
something that we need to apply critical thinking to. He argues that if
we care about pain, suffering, and death, and if we are to live up to
the demands of justice, then we should take responsibility for our
diets and become vegetarians. Environmental thinker Holmes Rolston III
maintains that meat eating by humans is a natural part of the
ecosystem. He states that it is important that animals do not suffer
needlessly, but it would be a mistake to think that animals, like
humans, are members of a culture. Rolston concludes that people too
readily project human nature on animal nature.
Unit 5 Other Moral Issues
Issue 16. Should College Athletes Be Paid?
YES: Taylor Branch, from "The Shame of College Sports," The Atlantic
Monthly (October 2011)
NO: Seth Davis, from "Should College Athletes Be Paid? Why, They
Already Are," Sports Illustrated (September 21, 2011)
Taylor Branch argues that college athletics is big business, and
everyone involved is allowed a share of the wealth-except for the
students who make it all possible. So-called "student athletes" are
exploited. The phrase "student athletes" is itself a cop-out. Seth
Davis addresses Branch's article directly, but he denies much of
Branch's case. College sports, he says, are not big business; most
teams lose money for their colleges. To think that college athletes,
such as football players, come away empty-handed is simply false. For
one thing, they receive an education (which itself could be valued at
about $200,000 in tuition). They also receive training, coaching, and
special tutoring.
Issue 17. Is It Right to Produce Genetically Modified Food?
YES: Ronald Bailey, from "Dr. Strangelunch-Or: Why We Should Learn to
Stop Worrying and Love Genetically Modified Food," Reason (January
2001)
NO: Michael W. Fox, from Killer Foods: When Scientists Manipulate
Genes, Better Is Not Always Best (Lyons Press, 2004)
Ronald Bailey is a strong supporter of genetically modified food (GMF).
He argues that it is feared by many activists, but there is no strong
proof that there are any problems with it. In fact, he sugges ts that
there are great benefits that can be provided by GMFs, especially to
the world's poor and to those suffering from natural calamities.
Michael Fox is cautious about the spread of scientism and the morally
blind push for technological development. This scientism, when combined
with an aggressive spirit of enterprise, threatens to upset the balance
of nature. We may try to rearrange natural things (including plants and
animals) to serve our own purposes, but Fox believes that in this way
we end up alienating ourselves from the natural world.