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xiv. Preface on none of these issues can Ibe confident that there is no more to say, On the contrary, there is lots more to think and to say about all of them and I hope that that is what readers will be inspired to do. In dealing with the moral issues that follow, I am conscious of how limited my own experience is: for example, as yet I have not fought in a war, nor seriously contemplated suicide, nor been pregnant, nor been asked by someone I love to bring his or her life toan end, To some extent, therefore, there are many questions here that I view as an outsider. Yet I do not pretend that this disinterested position necessarily provides me with an objective viewpoint from which I can judge what is right and wrong. On the contrary, perhaps my insights would be more profound had my experience of life been broader. There are certainly dangers inherent in taking a too superficial approach to problems which one has not directly faced. I can say only that I have tried not to dismiss as irrelevant those considerations which many people see as important, simply because there appear to be arguments against them. Indeed, I have generally tried to discover what che argu- ments might be in favour of views that I believe are commonly held. 1 Applying Philosophy to Moral Issues Why bother with moral philosophy? Morality is concerned with right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice; with judging what we do and the consequences of what we do, Moral philosophy, or ethics, is that branch of philosophy which has morality as its subject matter. It analyses the moral terms we use and the status of our moral judgements; it considers the justifications that might be given for our moral positions The question ‘Why concern ourselves with moral problems?” has an obvious answer: we cannot avoid such problems since life is continually placing them in our path. We encounter them in growing up, in our working life, in raising children, in caring for aged parents, in our relationships with colleagues, loved ones and adversaries, in the opportunities and temptations we are presented with, Newspapers, radio and television are full of accounts of people who are, correctly or otherwise, presented as wrong- doers ~ murderers, child abusers, terrorists, armed robbers, sur- rogate mothers, football hooligans — or as deserving our sympathy and help ~ hospital patients, victims of violent crimes, of famine, of war or of natural disasters, the infirm or disabled, orphaned children. The media also contain debate and argument concerning issues on which different opinions are possible ~ how to combat terrorism, what level of spending on health care is needed, how much information should be made available to the public, the desirability of immunization programmes, whether capital punish- ‘ment should be reintroduced, and so on.

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