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Reading path · Beginner

First steps in ethics

Ethics asks how we should live and what we owe one another. This path starts with a short dialogue that poses one of the oldest questions in the subject. Two clear modern guides then set out the main theories and the usual worries about ethics. After that you read the founding texts of three rival approaches: outcomes (Mill), duty (Kant) and character (Mencius and Aristotle). Reading Mencius beside Aristotle shows two traditions building an ethics of virtue on different pictures of human nature. Allow about two months.

7 books, in order

  1. Step 1: Euthyphro

    Plato · c. 399–390 BCE

    Socrates asks whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious, or is pious because they love it. That question still frames debates about whether morality can rest on divine command.

    Where to start
    Read it whole; it is short. Grube's translation in Plato's Five Dialogues collects it with the Apology and Crito.
    Time
    1 evening
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  2. Step 2: Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics

    Simon Blackburn · 2001

    Blackburn takes the worries that stop people thinking about ethics, such as relativism, selfishness and the fear that morality has no foundation. He shows why none of them ends the conversation.

    Where to start
    Read Part One on the seven threats first; it is the most original part of the book and frames everything that follows.
    Time
    1 week
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  3. Step 3: The Elements of Moral Philosophy

    James Rachels · 1986

    Rachels sets out each major theory, from egoism and the social contract to utilitarianism, Kant, the ethics of care and virtue ethics, with real cases and fair objections. It works as a map for the primary texts that follow.

    Where to start
    In recent editions, read Chapter 1, 'What Is Morality?', and Chapter 2, 'The Challenge of Cultural Relativism', then Chapter 4, 'Does Morality Depend on Religion?', which returns to the Euthyphro.
    Time
    2–3 weeks
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  4. Step 4: Utilitarianism

    John Stuart Mill · 1861 (book edition 1863)

    Mill argues that actions are right in so far as they tend to promote happiness. He defends the view against its early critics, including the charge that it cannot account for justice.

    Where to start
    Read Chapter II, 'What Utilitarianism Is', then Chapter V, 'Of the Connexion between Justice and Utility'.
    Time
    3–4 evenings
    Difficulty
    Beginner

  5. Step 5: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

    Immanuel Kant · 1785

    Kant argues that an action has moral worth only when it is done from duty, and that the supreme principle of morality is a law that reason gives itself. It is short but difficult.

    Where to start
    Read the Preface and the First Section quickly, then spend most of your time on the Second Section, where the formulations of the categorical imperative are set out.
    Time
    1–2 weeks
    Difficulty
    Intermediate

  6. Step 6: Mencius (Mengzi)

    Mencius · c. 4th–3rd century BCE (compiled by his followers)

    Mencius holds that human nature is good: everyone has the beginnings of virtue, which grow like sprouts if they are cultivated. His debates with Gaozi are a model of argument by analogy.

    Where to start
    Begin with 2A6, the child about to fall into a well, then the debates with Gaozi in 6A1–2 and the Ox Mountain passage in 6A8.
    Time
    1–2 weeks
    Difficulty
    Intermediate

  7. Step 7: Nicomachean Ethics

    Aristotle · 4th century BCE

    Aristotle argues that the highest human good is a life of activity in accordance with virtue. He explains virtue of character as a settled state formed by habit.

    Where to start
    Read Books I and II, on the human good and on virtue of character, then Books VIII and IX on friendship.
    Time
    2–3 weeks
    Difficulty
    Intermediate

Then

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