Customer Reviews

The Moral of the Story: An Anthology of Ethics Through Literature

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This book is a refreshing departure from most Ethics textbooks. Singer and Singer have collected 79 readings--poems, short stories, and excerpts from novels--which they use as a way to get readers to think about interesting moral issues. The stories make the issues concrete, make them come to life, and are usually effective at drawing the reader into the situation. The book is divided into 15 sections. Each section has a three or four page introduction that gives a philosophical overview, then four or five readings for each section explore these issues in specific detail. The real strength of the book is the range of the readings. Highlights include: Invisible Man, Bonfire of the Vanities, The Soft-Hearted Sioux, The Model, Mrs Warren's Profession, Enduring Love, How to be Good, The Undesirable Table, The Limits of Trooghaft, Robinson Crusoe, Huckleberry Finn, The Third Man, This Way for the Gas, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, The Remains of the Day, To Kill a Mockingbird, Brave New World, and The Princess Casamassima. Highly recommended.

For a beginner in the study of ethics like myself this was a superb alternative to a dry textbook. I was surprised to find excerpts from books that I have already read and liked ("The Good German" by Joseph Kannon being such example), and see notes by Singer & Singer as to why the issue was chosen and what questions were posed. The fact that Peter Singer, an avowed utilitarianist, included a short story by Ursula LeGuin ("The Ones who walk away from Omelas")which could be seen as contrasting the "greater good to all achieved at the expense of harm to one" with "absolute rights of one and of all", was not lost on me. Much recommended.

This book was for a class in college and I ended up really liking it. It is a bunch of short stories and parts of books so it was a good way to find some more books that I would like to read in the future. It was also very interesting. I would definently recommend it.