Chapter 1: Thinking About Values

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times?
Good and Evil
Is Morality Hardwired?
Values, Morals and Ethics
Debating Moral Issues: The Role of Religion, the Law, Logic, Emotions, and Story-Telling
Martha Nussbaum: Stories, Ethics, and Emotions
Primary Reading: Martha Nussbaum, Love's Knowledge
Primary Reading: Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect
Narrative: Smoke Signals
Narrative: Big Fish
Narrative: East of Eden

Chapter 2: Learning Moral Lessons from Stories

Didactic Stories
The New Interest in Stories Across the Professions
The Value of Stories in World Cultures
Stories of Values Across the Ages
Primary Reading: Plato, The Republic
Primary Reading: Aristotle, Poetics
Primary Reading: Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Primary Reading: Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder
Narrative: Medea
Narrative: The Sorrows of Young Werther
Narrative: The Education on Mingo
Narrative: Pulp Fiction

Chapter 3: Ethical Relativism

How to Deal with Moral Differences
The Lessons of Anthropology
Refuting Ethical Relativism
James Rachels and Soft Universalism
Ethical Relativism and Multiculturalism
Primary Reading: Ruth Benedict, Anthropology and the Abnormal
Primary Reading: Dwight Furrow, Dwellers and Spirits: The Problem with Moral Absolutes
Primary Reading: John Steinbeck, Paradox and Dream
Narrative: The Poisonwood Bible
Narrative: Possessing the Secret of Joy
Narrative: Do the Right Thing

Chapter 4: Myself or Others?

Psychological Egoism: From Virginia Tech to 9/11
Psychological Egoism: From Glaucon to Hobbes
Shortcomings to Psychological Egoism
Ethical Egoism and Its Critics
Being Selfless: Levinas's Ideal Altruism vs. Singer's Reciprocal Altruism
Selfish Genes, or Fellow-Feeling? Dawkins, Midgley, Hume and de Waal
Primary Reading: Plato, The Republic
Primary Reading: Erik Katz, The Rings of Tolkien and Plato: Lessons in Power, Choice, and Morality
Primary Reading: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
Primary Reading: Ayn Rand, The Ethics of Emergencies
Primary Reading: Frans de Waal, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved
Narrative: Friends episode: "The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS"
Narrative: Return to Paradise
Narrative: Atlas Shrugged
Narrative: The Lord of the Rings

Chapter 5: Using Your Reason, Part 1: Utilitarianism

Jeremy Bentham and the Hedonistic Calculus
Advantages and Problems of Sheer Numbers: From Animal Welfare to the Question of Torture
John Stuart Mill: Higher and Lower Pleasures
Mill's Harm Principle
Act and Rule Utilitarianism
Primary Reading: Jeremy Bentham, Of the Principle of Utility
Primary Reading: John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism
Primary Reading: Peter Singer, A Convenient Truth
Narrative: The Blacksmith and the Baker
Narrative: The Brothers Karamazov
Narrative: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Narrative: Extreme Measures
Narrative: Runaway Jury

Chapter 6: Using Your Reason, Part 2: Kant's Deontology

Consequences Don't Count - Having a Good Will Does
The Categorical Imperative
Rational Beings Are Ends in Themselves
Beings Who Are Things
The Kingdom of Ends
Primary Reading: Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals
Primary Reading: Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals
Narrative: High Noon
Narrative: 3:10 to Yuma
Narrative: Match Point

Chapter 7: Personhood, Rights, and Justice

What Is a Human Being?
The Expansion of the Concept "Human"
Personhood: The Key to Rights
Science and Moral Responsibility: Genetic Engineering, Stem Cell Research, and Cloning
Questions of Rights and Equality
Distributive Justice: From Rawls to Affirmative Action
Forward- and Backward-Looking Justice and Affirmative Action
Criminal Justice: Restorative Versus Retributive Justice
Primary Reading: The United Nations Universal Declaration of Rights
Primary Reading: John Rawls, Justice as Fairness
Primary Reading: Martin Luther King, Jr., A Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Primary Reading: Diane Whitely, Two Texts on Discrimination
Primary Reading: John Bertreaux, Defining Racism in the 21st Century
Primary Reading: Diane Whitely, The Victim and the Justification of Punishment
Narrative: The Island
Narrative: Gattaca
Narrative: Mississippi Burning
Narrative: Hotel Rwanda
Narrative: Minority Report

Chapter 8: Virtue Ethics from Tribal Philosophy to Socrates and Plato

What Is Virtue? What is Character?
Non-Western Virtue Ethics: Africa and Indigenous America
Virtue Ethics in the West
The Good Teacher: Socrates' Legacy, Plato's Works
The Good Life
The Virtuous Person: The Tripartite Soul
Plato's Theory of Forms
Plato's Influence on Christianity
Primary Reading: Plato, The Republic
Primary Reading: Plato, Apology
Narrative: A Man for All Seasons
Narrative: The Myth of the Cave
Narrative: The Truman Show
Narrative: Shrek

Chapter 9: Aristotle's Virtue Theory: Everything in Moderation

Empirical Knowledge and the Realm of the Senses
Aristotle the Scientist
Aristotle's Virtue Theory: Teleology and The Golden Mean
Aristotle's Influence on Thomas Aquinas
Some Objections to Greek Virtue Theory
Primary Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book II
Primary Reading: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book III
Narrative: The Flight of Icarus
Narrative: Njal's Saga
Narrative: Lord Jim
Narrative: A Piece of Advice
Narrative: As Good as it Gets

Chapter 10: Contemporary Perspectives

Ethics and the Morality of Virtue as Political Concepts
Have Virtue, and Then Go Ahead: Mayo, Foot, and Sommers
The Quest for Authenticity: Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, and Levinas
Primary Reading: Soren Kierkegaard, Johannes Climacus
Primary Reading: Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
Primary Reading: Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism
Primary Reading: The Paradox of Morality: An Interview with Emmanuel Levinas
Narrative: No Exit
Narrative: Good Will Hunting
Narrative: The Searchers

Chapter 11: Case Studies in Virtue

Courage of the Physical and Moral Kind
Gratitude: Asian Tradition and Western Modernity
Virtue and Conduct: The Option of Soft Universalism
Diversity, Politics and Common Ground?
Primary Reading: John McCain, Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life
Primary Reading: Philip Hallie, Tales of Good and Evil, Help and Harm
Primary Reading: Lin Yutang, On Growing Old Gracefully
Narrative: Band of Brothers, Third Episode, "Carentan"
Narrative: The Life of Tom Horn
Narrative: The Parable of the Good Samaritan
Narrative: Schindler's List
Narrative: Eat Drink Man Woman
Narrative: Pay It Forward

Chapter 12: Different Gender, Different Ethic?

Feminism and Virtue Theory
What Is Gender Equality?
Women's Historical Role in the Public Sphere
First-, Second-, and Third-Wave Feminism
Classical, Difference and Radical Feminism
Primary Reading: Harriet Taylor Mill, Enfranchisement of Women
Primary Reading: Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
Primary Reading: Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
Narrative: A Doll's House
Narrative: The Woman Destroyed
Narrative: Mona Lisa Smile

Chapter 13: Applied Ethics: A Sampler

The Question of Abortion and Personhood
Euthanasia as a Right to Choose?
Media Ethics and Media Bias
Business Ethics: The Rules of the Game
Just War Theory
Animal Welfare and Animal Rights
Ethics of the Environment: Think Globally, Act Locally
The Death Penalty
The Ethics of Self-Improvement: Narrative Identity
A Final Word
Primary Reading: Andrew Belsey and Ruth Chadwick, Ethics as a Vehicle for Media Quality
Primary Reading: Amber Levanon Seligson and Laurie Choi, Critical Elements of an Organizational Ethical Culture
Primary Reading: Scott Gottlieb, How Safe Is Our Food? FDA Could Do Better
Primary Reading: John Rawls, The Law of Peoples
Primary Reading: Jan Narveson, Morality and Violence: War, Revolution, Terrorism
Primary Reading: The Declaration on Great Apes
Primary Reading: Lee Hall and Anthony Jon Waters, From Property to Person: The Case of Evelyn Hart
Primary Reading: Ethics and the Environment
Primary Reading: A.O. Scott, Warning of Calamities and Hoping for a Change in 'An Inconvenient Truth'
Primary Reading: Michael Barone, Gore Twists Science, History
Primary Reading: Tom Sorell, Two Ideals and the Death Penalty
Primary Reading: Mark Fuhrman, Death and Justice: An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine
Primary Reading: Tristine Rainer, Your Life as Story
Narrative: 15 Minutes
Narrative: The Insider
Narrative: The Jigsaw Man
Narrative: The Life of David Gale