Ethics and Reality Collected Essays

Published in 2001, Ethics and Reality presents a new collection of Jenny Teichman's most important essays across a wide spectrum of ethical issues. Teichman explores a range of human problems including: war and peace, tyranny and terrorism, sex and gender and life and death. Focusing particularly on philosophical scepticism and reality, Teichman argues that if scepticism is irrefutable then ethical reasoning has no connection with reality and what look like genuine human dilemmas must be purely imaginary. The essays in the first part of this book are intended to show that scepticism can be rebutted; those in the second and third sections exemplify the application of moral reasoning to inescapable quandaries.

Part 1: Against Scepticism 1. Sceptics and Scepticism 2. Berkeley’s Incompatible Predicates 3. Nietzsche and Scepticism 4. Richard Rorty and the Philosophy of We 5. Deconstruction and Aerodynamics 6. An Empiricist Dream 7. A False Pregnancy 8. Nihilism Refuted? Wilson’s attempt 9. Thomas Nagel’s Last Word 10. Susan Haack: On the Side of Truth 11. The Flights of the Enchanter 12. The Niagara of Philosophy 13. Moral Truth and Moral Tradition Part 2: Ethics and Reality: Sex and Gender, Life and Death 14. Sex and Gender 15. The Intellectual Capacity of David Stove 16. Intention and Sex 17. Illegitimacy and Literature 18. Love on the Couch 19. 'The grisly science of embryo cloning’ 20. Bio-Ethics and Utility 21. The False Philosophy of Peter Singer 22. Free Speech and the Public Platform 23. The Uses and Abuses of Philosophy 24. What is Sacred? 25. Life and its Meanings Part 3: Ethics and Reality: Tyranny and Terrorism, War and Peace 26. Politicians 27. On Hannah Arendt 28. ’Your Terrorist is my Freedom Fighter’ 29. How to Define Terrorism 30. The Just War.