Morality's Critics and Defenders

"The risk, when teaching ethics to undergraduates, is that the issues may easily sound too abstract and bookish to them. Timm Triplett's Morality's Critics and Defenders: A Philosophical Dialogue is the best antidote. By adopting a dialogical form and setting the stage in a classroom, with four very credible students and one teaching assistant as the protagonists, this concise but very valuable book will engage students and stimulate great class discussions. Big issues such as the relationship between religion and morality, the possibility of ethical relativism, animal rights and the moral implications of racism are engagingly covered and so are the most relevant moral perspectives. Students and teachers will undoubtedly find this book very useful, deep, and entertaining."
    —Mario De Caro, Tufts University

SKU
27198g

A Philosophical Dialogue

Timm Triplett

2014 - 144 pp.

Grouped product items
Format ISBN Price Qty
Cloth 978-1-62466-207-2
$32.95
Paper 978-1-62466-206-5
$11.00
Instructor Examination (Review) Copy 978-1-62466-206-5
$2.00

eBook available for $9.95. Click HERE for more information and purchasing options.

Instructor Resources: To download a PDF of an instructor's guide with suggestions on how to use Morality's Critics and Defenders in the classroom, written by author Timm Triplett, click HERE.


In this engaging and accessible dialogue, four students offer contrasting arguments on the nature and scope of morality. While specific social policy issues, such as animal rights and racism, come into play, the discussions focus on more general—and fundamental—questions, including:

  • Does morality limit personal freedom?
  • Is morality relative to culture, or is it universal?
  • What is the motivation to be moral?
  • Is religion in tension with secular moral principles?
  • Does science undermine morality?
  • Can a common morality emerge out of the diversity of human interests?    

        
A glossary of important terms and suggestions for further reading are included.    

 

Reviews:

"Timm Triplett succeeds in drawing the reader into a conversation always already in progress—a conversation on the meaning of morality as it is rooted in human vulnerability and in our capacity to reason—and invites us to continue thinking about and discussing these essential matters long after the last page has been turned."
    —Robert Kirkwood, Georgia Institute of Technology 

"The risk, when teaching ethics to undergraduates, is that the issues may easily sound too abstract and bookish to them. Timm Triplett's Morality's Critics and Defenders: A Philosophical Dialogue is the best antidote. By adopting a dialogical form and setting the stage in a classroom, with four very credible students and one teaching assistant as the protagonists, this concise but very valuable book will engage students and stimulate great class discussions.
   "Big issues such as the relationship between religion and morality, the possibility of ethical relativism, animal rights and the moral implications of racism are engagingly covered and so are the most relevant moral perspectives. Students and teachers will undoubtedly find this book very useful, deep, and entertaining."
    —Mario De Caro, Tufts University

"Excellent book for foundational study of moral philosophy."
    —Robert Samuel Thorpe, Oral Roberts University

 

About the Author:

Timm Triplett is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire.