Ethics Done Right: Practical Reasoning as a Foundation for Moral Theory

Ethics Done Right examines how practical reasoning can be put into the service of ethical and moral theory. Elijah Millgram shows that the key to thinking about ethics is to understand generally how to make decisions. The papers in this volume support a methodological approach and trace the connections between two kinds of theory in utilitarianism, in Kantian ethics, in virtue ethics, in Hume’s moral philosophy, and in moral particularism. Unlike other studies of ethics, Ethics Done Right does not advocate a particular moral theory. Rather, it offers a tool that enables one to decide for oneself.

• Covers three main types of moral theory (and a couple of exotic ones) • Explores the foundations of ethics but not metaethics • Connects practical reasoning and moral theory

1. Introduction: the method of practical reasoning; 2. What’s the use of utility?; 3. Mill’s proof of the principle of utility; 4. Does the categorical imperative give rise to a contradiction in the will? 5. Reasonably virtuous; 6. Murdoch, practical reasoning, and particularism; 7. Was Hume a Humean? 8. Hume on ‘is’ and ‘ought’; 9. Hume, political noncognitivism, and the history of England; 10. Incommensurability and practical reasoning; 11. Commensurability in perspective; 12. Varieties of practical reasoning and varieties of moral theory.