Ethics Readings

Basic Texts and Other Resources for Teaching Core Ethics Courses

The following texts constitute an online library of classical sources for core ethics courses taught in the Department of Philosophy at Loyola University. Teachers are encouraged to share ideas about how to use these materials as well as to edit this list of readings. This resource is a work in progress, and is designed primarily for posting selected texts on course web sites (Blackboard). However, all these texts are in the public domain and there is no reason a teacher could not also distribute them in hard copy.

This web page is for teachers, not students. The actual selection of texts is up to each teacher, with the understanding that every core ethics course will draw on these materials in order to provide a common framework within which specific topics, applications, and philosophical approaches can be presented. (A separate, password protected web page will be constructed if demand exists for sample quizzes, study questions, outlines, and other teaching materials.)

Plato (After you open each link a text-only version of the work will be available for download.)

• Euthrypho
• Apology
• Crito
• Republic

Aristotle (After you open each link a text-only version of the work will be available for download.)

• Nicomachean Ethics
• Politics

Augustine

• Confession

Aquinas

• Summa Theologica
• Summa Contra Gentiles

Hobbes

• Leviathan

Locke

• Second Treatise of Civil Government
• A Letter Concerning Toleration

Hume

• Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

Rousseau

• Confessions

Kant

• Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

Mill

• Essay On Liberty
• Utilitarianism

Marx

• The 1844 Manuscripts
• Manifesto