Moral Philosophy Reading List
A curated sequence of 12 books on ethics and moral philosophy — compiled from a video reading list (timestamps in parentheses). Together they trace how humans reason about right, wrong, fairness, and obligation: the discipline of thinking clearly about values, which is critical thinking applied to how we ought to live.
The 12 Books
- Totality and Infinity — Emmanuel Levinas (0:27–1:45): ethical responsibility to others precedes our own freedom and understanding.
- The Genealogy of Morals — Friedrich Nietzsche (1:46–2:30): challenges the origins of our moral beliefs to loosen ideological rigidity.
- Reasons and Persons — Derek Parfit (2:31–3:45): personal identity and moral truth, questioning standard rational-choice assumptions.
- Nicomachean Ethics — Aristotle (3:46–4:32): foundational concepts like the golden mean and telos.
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals — Immanuel Kant (4:33–5:48): the categorical imperative and the consistency of one’s values.
- Utilitarianism — John Stuart Mill (5:49–6:29): outcome-based ethics — “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”
- A Theory of Justice — John Rawls (6:30–7:09): the veil of ignorance for reasoning objectively about fairness.
- What We Owe to Each Other — T.M. Scanlon (7:10–7:42): weigh others’ reasons with the same seriousness as your own.
- The Right and the Good — W.D. Ross (7:43–8:11): conflicting prima facie duties with no single overarching rule.
- The Normative Web — Terence Cuneo (8:12–9:21): rejecting moral truth undermines any reason to believe anything at all.
- From Morality to Virtue — Michael Slote (9:22–9:55): the “self–other asymmetry” and our neglected duties to ourselves.
- Principia Ethica — G.E. Moore (9:56–10:56): the “open question argument” and precision in defining moral terms.