Corwood Industries asked about Philosophy for Beginners. I have not read that book, but I have read others in the series, e.g., Kierkegaard for Beginners. The Kierkegaard one was funny and enjoyable to read, but made only the sparest of contact with anything resembling philosophical rigor. In my soon-to-be professional opinion (come on, December 2006!) I wouldn't start with this one. But like I said, I have read the Philosophy for Beginners one, and that might be different.

Oops. I should have said, "I have not read the Philosophy for Beginners one, and that one might be different."

bob bob!!!

Give me the definition of ethics and morals. I love this. pops corn

Think, by Simon Blackburn.

This sounds like a winner. If I know what the biases are walking in to it, it won't enrage me and make me toss the book against a wall.

Philosophy: The Basics, by Nigel Warburton.

Anyone else thinking "BIG BLUE PHILOSOPHICAL JUSTICE!"?

Complete Idiot's Guide to Philosophy, by Jay Stephenson

I've heard of a lot of philosophers, but I've never heard of Jay Stephenson. I haven't heard any philosopher ever mention this book, and I don't think Stephenson teaches anywhere. I doubt it's horrible, but I can't tell you anything about this book.

Per the book reviews at Amazon [link] he doesn't appear to be a philosopher:

Jay Stevenson, Ph.D., teaches writing, cultural history, and theory at Rutgers University. He is coauthor of The Concise Guide to Grammar and The Concise Guide to Legal Terms, a contributor to both the North American Biography and International Biography series for Grolier, and has written extensively on philosophy, cultural history, technology, and literature. He is an internationally recognized authority on Margaret Cavendish, the first prominent female philosopher of the modern era. Dr. Stevenson resides in Piscataway, New Jersey. and Jay Stevenson received his Ph.D. in English literature from Rutgers University and currently works as a writer and editor in New Jersey. He is also an adjunct professor of reading at Rider University. His most recent books are The Complete Idiot’s Guide‚ to Eastern Philosophy, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide‚ to Angels. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Bob, do you know if Morris's For Dummies book has anything on Plantinga?

I was excited to read your comments on Sophie's World. It's been on my to-be-read shelf for too long.

anything on Plantinga

Bob loves Plantinga.

Yeah, this is great. I bookmarked the beginning of the whole discussion for later reference.

Bob, do you know if Morris's For Dummies book has anything on Plantinga?

According to the index on Amazon, he makes no reference to Plantinga, but I wouldn't be surprised if a reference didn't sneak in anyway, at least in a "further reading" section. Plantinga so thoroughly transformed philosophy of religion, and is such a massive presence at Notre Dame, that I doubt Morris failed to mention him. At the same time, while Plantinga is an elegant writer, much of what he discusses is at quite a high level of abstraction, so Morris might have refrained from mentioning him for that reason.

Are you going to answer

Give me the definition of ethics and morals.

?

Allyson wrote,

Give me the definition of ethics and morals

It's funny; the first and only time I heard about this distinction between ethics and morals was in the movie, "Election". I've never heard such a distinction brought up in a philosophy seminar, but I might have encountered it in a book somewhere.

Near as I can tell, though, the difference between ethics and morals is this:

Morals is a part of the subject matter of ethics. Morals concerns the following concepts: the obligatory, the permitted, and the forbidden. In the field of "normative ethics", much work is spent figuring out what kinds of actions are obligatory, permitted, or forbidden. (Note: only actions have the status of being obligatory, permitted, or forbidden. Thus, persons can't be forbidden, although some can be legally forbidden from entering a country; but obviously what's being forbidden in such a case is their act of entering the country, not the persons themselves.)

Ethics is much broader. It includes not only such questions as "what kinds of actions are permitted, forbidden, and obligatory?", but also, what kinds of states of affairs or people are good, bad, or indifferent? It might also concern questions like, "how can value--subjective or objective--exist in a world that is composed only of sub-atomic particles (or superstrings, or whatever)?" (such a question would belong to the domain of "meta-ethics") and questions like, "what is the meaning of the word, 'ought'?" (meta-ethics) or "What is a virtue?" (could belong either to normative or meta-ethics) or "when is it permitted for one country to go to war against another?" (applied ethics, but also a part of morality) Like I said, though, philosophers whom I know don't really ever distinguish between ethics and morals.