Social Ethics: Morality and Social Policy 8th (eighth) Edition by Mappes, Thomas, Zembaty, Jane, DeGrazia, David (2011) Paperback – January 1, 1994

Over a period of 30 years of teaching philosophy at the college level I have taught numerous sections of general and applied ethics. I have used several different texts and have read or perused countless more. In determining whether or not to consider a text for adoption, several criteria come into play:1. Does the text cover the major topics in the area? The Mappes and Zembaty text does this, but so do many other texts.2. Does the selection of articles display a balance, with all viewpoints being fairly represented? Here too the Mappes and Zembaty anthology does a pretty decent job, but so do a lot of other anthologies.3. Are there issues that are relevant but that are not covered by most applied ethics texts? Mappes and Zembaty have chosen to play it safe on this one and contain little that cannot be found in other anthologies.4. Are there helpful overviews of each topic written by the editors of the text? Here is one area where the Mappes and Zembaty anthology does a better job than most. Each of the issues is preceded by an introduction of several pages in which the options are clearly spelled out.So, this text does the job, but in a rather unspectacular way.