Customer Reviews

Ethics for Everyone: How to Increase Your Moral Intelligence

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Arthur Dobrin takes a novel approach to the study of ethics: Instead of crafting complex ethical systems, he encourages his readers to figure out their own standards. He does this by sketching the broad outlines of Judeo-Christian moral tradition and the ethical thinking of the world's great philosophers. After laying this basic groundwork, he proceeds to present readers with a series of scenarios in which they are asked to decide what they would do. Dobrin hopes that readers will discover patterns in their responses that will reveal their own ethical systems. We from getAbstract highly recommend this enlightening book.

This book is filled with a general introduction to practical ethical questions and with real-life scenarios about which you are asked the ethical thing to do. After you have pondered each scenario, you are presented with a discussion of the issues and both the author's reactions and that of at least one other person. Whether you come to the same conclusions as the author or not, the scenarios are excellent tools to make you think and the book is well worth reading and serious study.

This is a book that supplies more examples than just "what it is" when dealing with ethics. There is so much here that occurs in important decisions either we or our friends and relatives encounter regularly, that I recommend it to anyone who wants to have a dialogue with another person, or a group of people. It especially lends itself to group discussion. As a teacher, I borrowed from "Ethics for Everyone" to bring out something from each of my students in discussion--including the "quiet ones." It's not necessarily that it's a textbook; it was not written that way, but it can be a text or just good reading for thinking and kicking it around with your friends.

This was a good book on a subject that is tough for me...

I have read this book twice, the first time on my own the second as part of an online class... I was somewhat interested in ethics the first time I read the book and therefore did not finish the book. Again, ethics is a little tough for me. The second time I read this book, I was interested, applied myself, did some self-reflection and got quite a bit out of this book. It was excellent...

My take home message is this: If you are interested in ethics and will apply yourself this book is well worth your money. I got more out of this book than I did out of all of my graduate and undergraduate classes. If you are not interested in ethics... well if you are not interested in ethics, why are you even looking at this book in the first place????

I thought from the topics covered, and the approach to the topic, that this book had significant potential. However, it was so poorly executed, I stopped reading without even getting halfway through.

Much of the discussion that takes place in the so-called "case studies" include opinions of people who are writers, journalists, psychologists, etc, who have made no special study of ethics or morality. If I want the opinions of average people, I can talk to my friends.

I was hoping this book would have some insight, and to a certain extent, this is provided in the first section. But beyond that, this book is of little use. I will need to look elsewhere for a good book on this topic.

While this book had a lot of potential, it doesn't live up to it. If you have given practical ethics any serious thought you are beyond this book's target audience. Perhaps if the concept is new for you this is a worthwhile read.