"Ethics is the study of right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and vice, or, more broadly, an attempt to identify the best way each of us should live". The introduction to this impressive reference work starts with this statement, admitting that every term should be unpicked, the social and political and psychological dimensions explained, the metaphysical and meta-ethical implications examined and that practical moral questions (like paying taxes and forgiving someone who has wronged us) should be our next task. An enterprise like this sets out to be comprehensive, authoritative and contemporary, to lay out the content in a coherent and user-friendly way, to set up intelligent cross-references between entries that authentically reflect overlaps and distinctions between definitions and methods, to capture the international flavour of ethics and its associations with culture and philosophy and morality and to connect everything up to the rich and challenging historiography and bibliography in all these areas. No small task, then, and it is achieved well in this impressive work under review.
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