The Fundamentals of Ethics

By: Russ Shafer-Landau

Narrated by: Jason Leikam

In fifth edition of The Fundamentals of Ethics, author Russ Shafer-Landau employs a uniquely engaging writing style to introduce students to the essential ideas of moral philosophy. Offering more comprehensive coverage of the good life, normative ethics, and metaethics than any other text of its kind, this book also addresses issues that are often omitted from other texts, such as the doctrine of doing and allowing, the doctrine of double effect, ethical particularism, the desire-satisfaction theory of well-being, moral error theory, and Ross' theory of prima facie duties. Shafer-Landau carefully reconstructs and analyzes dozens of arguments in-depth, at a level that is understandable to students with no prior philosophical background.

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Very thoughtful

This book has made me think more in depth and even question myself (in a positive way) and certain thoughts. This book will cause you to see things differently in everyday life.

Great overview of Etbics

The author covered the bases of the topic of ethics. I found it to be logical and easy to follow. Great to use as a reference. There weee minor issues in the recording such as repeated sentences.

Textbook SCORE 📗

This is an assigned textbook and luckily I can listen since I have a pretty long commute. The presentation is good and sounds well sped up to 1.4x where I listen. If you're a student, there is a way to cite this audiobook, be sure to include the narrator. In-text citations should include the timestamps so be sure to jot them down or voice-to-text in a note if you find a good supporting argument.

Really enjoyed it!

Extremely interesting reading that provides basic tools for ethical analysis. It dives into many different philosophies and get you logical criticism from many angles for each one

Seriously boring

I suppose this isn't intended to be a thrilling read. But surely the author could have done a better job of making this topic engaging. Instead he drones on and on with repeating the same syllogisms and arguments over and over. The basic content of this book is available on a quick Google search. Don't waste your time.

Limited perspective and junk arguments

This is a sadly standard text on ethics that might be assigned in an American university. The author spends almost all the book discussing rudimentary ethical positions (such as ethical egoism) as well as providing no end of the standard edge cases that purportedly show the power and limitations of these systems. Think people tied to train tracks and such things. Frequently, the author gives arguments that are simply bad--begging the question, making significant hidden assumptions, etc. all while (fatuously) criticizing much more complex arguments by thinkers such as Aquinas and Kant for doing the same. His coverage of natural law and virtue ethics is particularly dismal. For example, when discussing the crucial concept of "nature" in natural law, he creates a strawman version in which "nature" is simply the characteristics that, upon inspection, belong to "most members" of a group. Then he spends some time criticizing the obvious flaws in this strawman, which he hallucinates are actually those of natural ethics rather than his very shabby construction. He doesn't touch on Stoic ethics AT ALL and his presentation of virtue ethics is extremely poor and confused. Has he read any of the original sources for these ancient and medieval systems?

Having looked at several other books and sets of video lectures, it seems like this is the standard course on ethics, and I suppose expositions by other authors would be just as dismal. So perhaps this book is not bad because it stands out as such, but bad for being an average element of a bad set.