Muy buena introducción a la ética para conocer las distintas tendencias

Excellent primer on moral philosophy, and leaves you with many paths to explore.

A good introduction to various ethical theories - utilitarianism, social contract theory, virtue ethics, Kantian rules, and the ethics of care. I found the explanations clear and the examples thought-provoking. I thought Rachels did a good job laying out his reasoning for the strengths and limitations of each theory.
I appreciated how the book noted the contribution of feminist philosophers to moral philosophy, and wish it had included more such discussions of how philosophers' identities can bias them towards certain ethical theories.
I found the last chapter unsatisfying. Rachels ended up outlining the moral theory that was most plausible to him. This was interesting but I think should have been in an appendix. Instead, I would have preferred to have seen a synthesis of the main concepts, questions to guide the reader in formulating their own ethical theory, and resources for what to read next.

Don’t bother. Rachels & Rachels does a fine job when explaining various ethical theories (Kant, Rawls, Social Contract etc), which is why this has 2 stars instead of 1, but you can find this information from numerous other academic works that are clearly less biased. The whole premise of this book, and the lens through which they critique several different theories, is based on an unsupported and logically shaky assumption in a single brief chapter about the complete separation of ethics and morality, despite the fact that an atheistic view of the world is by far in the minority of historical experience.

Took this for a public administration graduate class - I agree it’s necessary to be able to communicate ethical decision making in public fields without relying on religion. Since the context of this book is not so narrowly focused on that field of study, I’m led to believe that the authors have allowed their personal views against religions of any kind to infiltrate the text so it is less the “elements” of moral philosophy and their “opinion” about moral philosophy.

Prejudiced against mullets; otherwise decent.

Um livro que se propões a abordar os temas da Filosofia Moral de uma forma, inicialmente, simples sem grandes aprofundamentos, apresentando vários pontos de vista. Um livros que não só cumpre o que se propõe como também é um excelente acompanhamento ao "Problemas da Filosofia" do mesmo autor.

pretty damn great, it taught me a lot of ways to think ethically about moral actions so it'll be useful my whole life

Very easy to understand with many examples. While the format of it was excellent, I rated it a 2/5 because I don't particularly like philosophy. This is a book I had to read in class.

Quite a lot of this book was incredibly biased. Plus, the thing cost $50 and it's a fricken' paperback of about 200 pages. What a rip-off. So, the book and I got off on the wrong start from the very beginning.

Anyway, though, I digress. The book was incredibly biased as a whole. While most of the time I agreed, it still pissed me off. The overview of Feminism, for a start, was particularly pathetic. Then there were just some times when it was so very obviously biased toward one theory over another that you're thinking, "Well, why even bother calling this a text book?"

However, I did like the examples. I did like the outlook on religion. Those were the only things that made the book worthwhile, as I found most of it opinionated and redundant. Maybe, once again, it's because I'm living in 2009 and I'm a reader, but a LOT of it seemed blatantly obvious to me.