Ethics & Society is a modular, media-rich eTextbook for introductory ethics courses that foregrounds application, reflection, and lived moral reasoning. Instead of treating ethics as abstract theory, it presents ethical frameworks as practical tools for understanding personal choices, social responsibility, and collective life. Designed for face-to-face, online, hybrid, and interdisciplinary contexts, the text’s flexible, modular structure allows instructors to assign entire units or individual modules, discussions, and workshops. A consistent, student-friendly design—combining primary readings, discussions, quizzes, and scaffolded projects—reduces cognitive overload while maintaining philosophical rigor.
The book is organized into two integrated units. Unit 1: Ethics introduces core traditions of normative ethics—virtue ethics, utilitarianism, deontology, feminism and care ethics, pragmatism, and pluralism—through canonical and contemporary thinkers. Students engage theory through media-based discussions and a signature Video Essay that replaces the traditional term paper, asking students to analyze a film using ethical frameworks and defend a reasoned position about the good life or moral responsibility. Carefully sequenced project workshops guide students step-by-step, supporting diverse learning styles while deepening analytical skill.
Unit 2: Society shifts focus from individual morality to social, political, and applied ethics, examining how power, institutions, and identities shape collective life. Topics such as justice and rights, social contract theory, race and gender, games, sports, and war place classical political philosophy in dialogue with feminist, racial, Indigenous, and applied critiques. The unit culminates in a scaffolded argumentative essay that emphasizes inquiry, revision, and real-world application over high-stakes exams. Together, the two units position ethics as an ongoing, dialogical practice—one that equips students to think critically about both how they live and how we live together.