Arshak Balayan

This is a manual of moral philosophy written in Armenian from the stand­ point of contemporary analytic philosophy. The book is addressed both to serious students of philosophy and wider readership. Both complete beginners as well as intermediate students of philosophy, law, political science and public policy will ben­efit from the manual. The manual presents profound issues of moral philosophy in an accessible language and uses wealth of examples to ensure clarity and accuracy of exposition. The book comprises of 3 interrelated parts. Part 1 discusses select methods of moral philosophy: conceptual analysis, thought experiments, reflective equilibrium and abduction. Part 1 also has sections on theoretical questions such as nature of morality and strategies for evaluating moral theories. Part 2 starts with discussion of 2 meta-ethical debates: emotivism vs. cognitivism and relativism vs. absolutism. Then it introduces the reader with 5 key theories of normative ethics: moral egoism, social contract theory, consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. Part 3 is the largest. It discusses a number of central problems of moral philosophy and explores relevance of moral philosophy for public policy and social issues in general. Issues discussed in Part 3 include ethics of well­being, liberty and paternal­ism, distributive justice, political legitimacy, punishment, environmental ethics, global justice, nationalism, secession and territorial rights, war etc. The author has tried to ensure a delicate balance between ensuring organic wholeness of the manual, and making separate chapters accessible to readers. Part 1 explains methods of moral philosophy presenting examples of their use in a way that even those uninformed of theories of normative ethics can benefit. Part 2 draws on methods of philosophy discussed in the previous section and helps readers deepen their understanding of methods of philosophy as well as epistemic grounds of normative theories. Part 3 relies both on Part 1 and Part 2 when explicating central concepts of moral philosophy. To get the most out of this manual, readers should read previous chapters before they read later ones, however keen readers can benefit from individual chapters as well.