Basic Ethics Reader

This web page mirrors the printed version of the Basic Ethics Reader developed for use in the ethics core courses taught within the Loyola Philosophy Department. The actual selection of texts is at the discretion of individual core teachers,with the understanding that every core ethics course will draw on some of these materials in order to provide a common framework within which specific topics, applications, and philosophical approaches can be presented. This resource is designed primarily for teachers who wish to post links to the selected texts on their course web sites (Sakai). However, all of these texts are in the public domain and, therefore, there is no reason a teacher could not also distribute them in hard copy.

Teachers may also choose to consult (and add to) the more extensive list of online readings posted on the Philosophy Department's Ethics Readings page. (A separate, password protected web page will also be constructed if demand exists for sample quizzes, study questions, outlines, and other teaching materials.)

Plato

• Euthrypho
• Apology
• Crito
• The Republic
• I, 336b–342e, 347b
• II, 357a–362c, 368c–376c
• III, 412b–417b
• IV, 427c–448e
• V, 448e–480a
• IV–VII, 502c–521b

Aristotle

• Nicomachean Ethics
• I, 336b–342e, 347b
• II, 357a–362c, 368c–376c
• III, 412b–417b
• IV, 427c–448e
• V, 448e–480a
• IV–VII, 502c–521b
• Politics
• III, 4, 10, 1

Augustine

• City of God
• XII, 1–9

Aquinas

• Summa Theologica
• First Part of the Second
• Q. 2, Art. 8
• Q. 3, Arts. 4, 8
• Q. 5, Art. 5
• Q. 94, Arts. 2, 4–5
• Q. 95, Arts. 1–2

Locke

• Second Treatise of Civil Government
• Ch. VII

Kant

• Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals
• Sections 1, 3

Mill

• Utilitarianism
• Chs. 1–2, 4–5