Product Description

Will meat eaters get into heaven? Do trees have rights? Is it ever right to 'design' a baby? From overcrowded lifeboats to the censor's pen, Martin Cohen's stimulating and amusing dilemmas will have you scratching your head and laughing out loud in equal measure. Whatever your background, there is a dilemma for you. There are the DIY babies and the breeding experiements from medicine; an ethically dubious chemical factory Business ethics; the 'School of Terror' from world affairs and the 'Twinkies courtroom drama' from law. In this book, you'll find dilemmas in the shape of beautiful and ugly sisters, frog kings, ancient volcanic islands and exotic villages. This book won't help you become a good person, but at least you will have thought about it...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #236383 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The author of 101 Ethical Dilemmas, Martin Cohen, is the editor of The Philosopher and the author of the bestselling 101 Philosophy Problems. This, his latest offering, is a book of two halves. The first half is a mixture of real and imaginary stories working as provocative thought experiments (or dilemmas) dealing with business, medical, legal, war, environmental and personal ethics and aimed at improving our skills of ethical navigation. The second half of the book is a detailed discussion section revealing the relationship of the dilemmas to philosophical and religious traditions and generally giving the dilemmas a more thorough going over.

This book is great fun. Many of the dilemmas are obviously profound, others appear to be entertaining, trivial diversions, but because they are all short and easily digestible the temptation is to read the whole of the first part quickly and without regard for the fact that each one captures a real and difficult ethical dilemma worth mulling over. The best way to use the book is to take the dilemmas slowly, one by one (or at most, group by group) and to try to resolve them for yourself. Cohen tells us that the discussion section can be read or left alone according to our discretion but reading it should reveal why the seemingly trivial "little things" are, in Sherlock Holmes words, "infinitely the most important". --Larry Brown

Review
'101 Ethical Dilemmas is witty, clever, imaginative, pithy and sweeping in scope. It explores many different questions concerning philosophy, ethics, religion and politics and leaves a great deal of room for further debate and discussion.' - David Resnik, author of The Ethics of Science

fish.co.uk
always thought-provoking, funny and iconoclastic about the whole business of doing philosophy... the most perfect toilet reading I know

Customer Reviews

Great workout for the brain!
All these problems and more- 101 to be exact- are tackled in Martin Cohen's hugely entertaining gallop through philosophy's thorniest questions. Naturally, Getethical readers have a head start- but to make it easier for everyone else Cohen takes humorous scenarios gleaned from the bible, philosophy, fairy tales and news stories as testing grounds for ethic's big questions.

Saving philosophy from dry abstractions Cohen's enlightening, irreverent style dismisses any set rules. Instead he balances the arguments and highlights the flaws of ancient and modern philosophers including Plato, Socrates and Hobbes. The problems are not solved - it is up to the reader to make up their own mind what is the right answer - or even if there is one. Cohen offers up his own reasoning, which you may or may not agree with, which helps to demystify the intimidating field of ethical philosophy.

Cohen is especially good in dragging ancient dilemmas into a modern context. Is torture wrong when interrogating terrorists? Should we bomb America for their terrorist training camps? Who is to blame for serial killers - society, the parents, themselves? When is it OK to design babies? The debates are real enough to create passion and provoke thought, but benefit from the gloss on previous philosophical debates. Perhaps the most intriguing are the "little dilemmas" of deceit. For example if an internet shopping site mistakenly thinks you have paid for a product when you haven't -do you keep quiet and accept or do you send the money anyway? I think you know what the writers of ethicalmatters.co.uk would say!

The book starts with the warning that it is not a guidebook for ethical living. What it does do is plant hundreds of more ethical questions in your mind, fulfilling its role as a light hearted, lively introduction to the subject of ethical philosophy. It may not make you a better person or resolve all your problems, but it's a great work out for your brain!

Hugely entertaining gallop
[A] hugely entertaining gallop through philosophy's thorniest questions. Saving philosophy from dry abstractions Cohen's enlightening, irreverent style dismisses any set rules. Instead he balances the arguments and highlights the flaws of ancient and modern philosophers... The debates are real enough to create passion and provoke thought... The book starts with the warning that it is not a guidebook for ethical living. What it does do is plant hundreds of more ethical questions in your mind, fulfilling its role as a light hearted, lively introduction to the subject of ethical philosophy. It may not make you a better person or resolve all your problems, but it's a great work out for your brain!