Almost everyone has wondered at some time or another why morality requires what it appears to require and how, if at all, it speaks to us. In "Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, " David Wiggins surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions-gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians and the post-utilitaritarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws not only on Hume but on other sources as diverse as Aristotl...

Works in this volume recount the circumstances of Socrates' trial and execution in 399 BC. Euthyphro attempts to define holiness; Apology is Socrates' defense speech; in Crito he discusses justice and defends his refusal to be rescued from prison; Phaedo offers arguments for the immortality of the soul.