The International Encyclopedia of Ethics

“Ethics is the study of right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice, or, more broadly, an attempt to identify the best way each of us should live”. The introduction to this impressive reference work starts with this statement, admitting that every term should be unpicked, the social and political and psychological dimensions explained, the metaphysical and meta-ethical implications examined and that practical moral questions (like paying taxes and forgiving someone who has wronged us) should be our next task. An enterprise like this sets out to be comprehensive, authoritative and contemporary, to lay out the content in a...