Open Access (OER) Ethics Textbook

Here's a new open-access ethics textbook with three essays by, me and me and a co-author, in it.

• "Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing" by Nathan Nobis 
• “Common Arguments about Abortion” and “Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion,” by Nathan Nobis and Kristina Grob, [both chapters]. 

UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION
1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin)
2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba)
3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr)
4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin)
5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge)
6 The Ethics of our Digital Selves (Noah Levin)

UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD”
7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas)
8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge)
9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis)
10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin)
11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob)
12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob)

UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS
13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar)
14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies)
15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman)
16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin)
17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar)
18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes)

UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS
19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh)
20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill)
21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge)
22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin)
23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)
24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill)

UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY
25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato)
26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley)
27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant)
28 The Virtues (Aristotle)
29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche)
30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko)

https://www.ngefarpress.com/2019/05/introduction-to-ethics-open-educational.html  

A Letter to the Editor on Abortion

A letter to the editor: "Dear Decaturish - Thinking Critically About Abortion"

Two additional readings on the issues:

• An overview of many of the arguments: "Ethics and Abortion" at 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 
• An argumentative chapter for a forthcoming Oxford University Press textbook: "Early and Later Abortions: Ethics and Law" 

An Argument for “Passive” and “Active” Mercy Killing, or Euthanasia

An Argument for “Passive” and “Active” Mercy Killing, or Euthanasia

Nathan Nobis, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA

nathan.nobis@gmail.com www.NathanNobis.com

Written for this open-access ethics textbook.

Draft 2/7/19; Current: 3577 words; can easily be cut down to the sought 2500.

1. Introduction 1

2. Definitions 2

3. An Argument for Passive Euthanasia 5

4. An Argument for Active Euthanasia 7

5. Objections: Potentially Relevant Differences Between Active and Passive Euthanasia 7

6. Conclusions 10 

Early and Later Abortions: Ethics and Law

Early and Later Abortions: Ethics and Law

Early Abortions Are Not Wrong, Late Abortions Could Be Wrong,

but probably All Abortions Should Be Legal

Reply to Christopher Tollefsen on Abortion, in Bob Fischer, ed., Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues That Divide Us (Oxford University Press, 2019).

For a reply to the "opposing side" essay, see my (9/26/18) "Reply to Christopher Tollefsen on Abortion"

Note: this chapter led to this short book: Thinking Critically About Abortion at www.AbortionArguments.com

Nathan Nobis; Philosophy, Morehouse College; nathan.nobis@gmail.com

Draft 7/31/18 ; Google doc; Also available at Academia.edu and Dropbox

Abstract

Most abortions occur early in pregnancy. I argue that these abortions, and so most abortions, are not morally wrong and that the best arguments given to think that these abortions are wrong are weak. I also argue that these abortions, and probably all abortions, should be legal.

I begin by observing that people sometimes respond to the issue by describing the circumstances of abortion, not offering reasons for their views about those circumstances; I then dismiss “question-begging” arguments about abortion that merely assume the conclusions they are given to support; most importantly, I evaluate many arguments: both common, often-heard arguments and arguments developed by philosophers.

My defense of abortion is based on facts about early fetuses’ not yet possessing consciousness or any mental life, awareness or feeling, as well as concerns about rights to one’s own body.

Abortion Presentation

Some slides from a presentation from long ago:

Chimpanzee Personhood

I made some small contributions the legal document here arguing that chimpanzees should be considered persons, not things:

"Philosophers Offer Support For Chimpanzee Rights Cases"

BIomarkers and Bioethics

Biomarkers in Cancer Screening and Early Detection

Sudhir Srivastava (Editor)

ISBN: 978-1-118-46880-7

320 pages

August 2017, Wiley-Blackwell

23 Bioethics and Cancer Biomarker Research, 277
Nathan Nobis, William Grizzle, and Stephen Sodeke

"Evidence-Based Care for the Elderly"

Samuel K. Williams and Joanne M. Braxton and Melissa Gosdin and Nathan Nobis et. al. "Evidence-Based Care for the Elderly: Uses of “the Grandmother Principle”." Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 28, no. 1 (2017): 1-7.