Science, Ethics, and Politics ─ Conversations and Investigations

This work is presented with the intention of demonstrating the contributions that scientific thought can make to the study of ethics. Monroe (director of the Ethics Center at the U. of California at Irvine) presents nine papers, each of which is paired with a conversation/interview with one of the paper's authors addressing the broader scientific-ethical issues raised by the paper in question. Topics include the roots of morality in evolutionary biology, the psychology of virtue, the "moral conundrum of blurred racial boundaries," the economic responsibility of parents to children, economics and climate change, ethical and scientific considerations of traumatic stress in the international context, ethics and the policy of extraordinary rendition, and gender equality in academia. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)