Cengage Learning Life and Death: Grapping with the Moral Dilemmas of our Time: Grappling with the Moral Dilemmas of Our Time

This single-authored, brief text explores the moral dilemmas in our lives from a philosophical point of view. Society is deeply divided on the matters of life and death discussed in this book: the sanctity of life versus the quality of life; the meaning of death and dying; suicide; euthanasia; abortion; artificial procreation such as in vitro fertilization and cloning; the death penalty; animal rights; world hunger; and war. Review Preface. Welcome to Moral Philosophy: A Word to the Student. Introduction: "Doctor's Death's" Suicide Machine. 1. What is Ethics? 2. Ethical Relativism vs. Ethical Objectivism. 3. Egoism, Self-Love, and Altruism. 4. Classical Ethical Theories. A. Deontological Ethics. B. Consequentialist Ethics. 5. The Sanctity of Life vs. the Quality of Life. 6. Death and Dying. 7. Suicide. 8. Euthanasia. 9. What is Death? The Crisis of Criteria. Interlude: The Slippery Slope. 10. Abortion: The Greatest Moral Problem of Our Generation. 11. Cloning: The Greatest Moral Problem of the Next Generation? 12. The Death Penalty. 13. Animal Rights. 14 World Hunger and Population. 15. War. Bibliography. Index. About the Author Louis P. Pojman (1935-2005) was Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the United States Military Academy and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary/Columbia University. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Copenhagen and a Rockefeller Fellow at Hamburg University. He received his D.Phil. in Philosophy from Oxford University in 1997.His first position was at the University of Notre Dame, after which he taught at the University of Texas at Dallas. Later, at the University of Mississippi, he served for three years as Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. In 1995, he became Professor of Philosophy at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He most recently was Visiting Professor at Brigham Young University in Utah and Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Oxford University. Pojman won several research and teaching awards, including the Burlington Northern Award for Outstanding Teaching and Scholarship (1988) and the Outstanding Scholar/Teacher in the Humanities at the University of Mississippi (1994). He wrote in the areas of philosophy of religion, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy and authored or edited more than 30 books and 100 articles. Louis Pojman passed away in 2005.