Ethics

Ethics, the study of what is good and what people owe one another, is filed here as a tag on books Kyle has read or means to read. It shows up in three registers.

• Fiction about responsibility. In I, Robot, Asimov has a character say the three Rules of Robotics “are the essential guiding principles of a good many of the world’s ethical systems.” Other fiction cards frame the subject as what a powerful person owes for a careless act, responsibility for what one has brought into being, and what is permissible to do to one child to save a species (The Invisible Man (Wells), The Island of Doctor Moreau, Ender’s Game, Xenocide).
• Philosophy. The Greek and Roman canon (Great Dialogues of Plato, The Basic Works of Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle), On Duties) and modern moral philosophy (After Virtue, On the Genealogy of Morals, Utilitarianism (Mill), Man for Himself, Personal Destinies).
• A curriculum. Several of these entries come from the section “Pursuing the Good Life: Ethics and Personal Growth” on Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

See also Morality and Philosophy.

Where this appears

• I, Robot