Moral dilemmas and moral theory /

These 12 essays (mainly from a Univ. of Minnesota conference), by Simon Blackburn, David O. Brink, Normal O. Dahl, Alan Donagan, Christopher W. Gowans, Thomas E. Hill Jr., Terrance C. McConnell, Ruth Barcan Marcus, H.E. Mason, Mary Mothersill, Peter Railton, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, speak to the classic articles of Marcus and Bernard Williams, which were collected along with other essays in Moral Dilemmas, ed. by Christopher Gowans (1987). But one attractive feature about this collection is that it is not narrowly focused; it operates from a wide variety of approaches and considers an assortment variety of questions. What are moral dilemmas? Do we find cases of moral dilemmas in real life, in literary contexts, in philosophical examples? Can the possibility of moral dilemmas be allowed by moral realism, by a Kantian system, by utilitarianism, by any adequate normative theory? The diversity in the contributors' points of view and their own philosophical sophistication allows these and other questions to be treated with richness and intellectual depth. Undergraduate; graduate; faculty; general. S. Satris Clemson University