The Elements of Moral Philosophy

The Elements of Moral Philosophy, by James Rachels and Stuart Rachels, is an ethics textbook. It explains a number of moral theories and topics, including cultural relativism, subjectivism, divine command theory, ethical egoism, social contract theory, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and deontology. The book uses real-life examples in explaining the theories.

Editions

James Rachels wrote the first edition in 1986. He revised the book three times, adding a chapter on "The Ethics of Virtue" in 1993 and a chapter on "Feminism and the Ethics of Care" in 1999. The fourth edition appeared in 2003, the year Rachels died. Since then, his son Stuart has written the fifth edition and the sixth edition, which was released in April 2009. An 8th edition was released in October 2014. The book has been translated into Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, Persian and Albanian. It is known for its accessibility to a wide readership.

David Fordyce wrote a book with the same title—however, aside from the titles, these books are largely unrelated.

External links

• http://www.jamesrachels.org/stuart/EMP.htm Stuart Rachels' discussion of the sixth edition of the book
• http://www.jamesrachels.org/ James Rachels' website