This VERY basic overview of ethics spends a huge amount of time discussing the historic personalities and their philosophies, with only quick looks at the modern-day applications most relevant to our lives. Good way to get a taste of the study, but not very satisfying. ( )

A short crash course in Ethics and how it relates to life in general. I really had no issues with this book besides the price, which seems rather exorbitant. However, I don't know how they arrive at prices for books.

Split into several chapters, the book starts by talking about historical attempts to deal with ethics and the situations presented by life in general. Most of it is imparted by way of thought experiments. This part is organized chronologically. It starts with Socrates and goes up through Aristotle before switching gears and talking about the major schools of thought that dealt with Ethical Situations.

The final section of the book talks about age-old paradoxes and ideas that didn't seem related to ethics at all. Take the Sorites Paradox for instance; that is the idea of when something can be called something. The most common example is that of a heap of sand. When is that pile of sand not a pile of sand? If you were to take the pile of sand away, grain by grain, when would that pile cease to be a pile? Obviously, one grain of sand doesn't make a pile or heap of sand, but when does its innate heap property arise?

The book also talks about the Ship of Theseus problem. This one also didn't seem related to Ethics at first glance. The Ship of Theseus refers to the Ship that this ancient, legendary figure known as Theseus was said to own. It was made up of wooden planks, and as a plank would rot it would be replaced. Over the centuries or however long it took, the boat was essentially replaced and none of the original planks remained. So then, would it still be proper to call it the Ship of Theseus?

So all in all, the book was quite informative and entertaining. Like I mentioned, my only problem is that the book is quite expensive for its size. ( )