Morality Matters: Race, Class, and Gender in Applied Ethics

How do race, class, and gender issues affect moral philosophy? This question is the focus of this ambitious new applied ethics anthology. Author Jeffrey R. Di Leo complements classical and contemporary readings with materials drawn from film, fiction, court cases, and current events to create this highly flexible and versatile volume.

Jeffrey R. Di Leo received his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Economics from Rutgers University. He has an M.A. in Comparative Literature, an M.A. in Philosophy, and a double Ph.D. in Philosophy and Comparative Literature all from Indiana University, Bloomington. He is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the comparative literature and critical theory journal symploke which is published in print by the University of Nebraksa Press and on-line by Johns Hopkins University Press. His editing work on this journal earned him the Phoenix Award for Outstanding Editorial Achievement by the Council of Editors of Learned Journals in 2000. He is also Series Editor for Class in America published by the University of Nebraska Press, and the editor most recently of On Anthologies: Critical and Practical Issues (University of Nebraska Press, 2004) and If Classrooms Matter and If Classrooms Matter: Essays on Place in Education (Routledge, 2004).

He has taught at number of universities including Indiana University, Georgia Tech, University of Illinois at Chicago, and currently, University of Houston-Victoria. For over ten years, Professor Di Leo instructed students from all over the world by correspondence through Indiana University's division of extended studies. This experience revealed to him the need for an ethics textbook that was both based on a comprehensive pedagogical system, and approached applied ethics from multiple points of entry (class, race, gender) and media (literature, film, court cases, news clips, etc.). Morality Matters was successfully designed to meet these needs. It is designed as an anthology that is both respective of the needs of students (glossary, study questions, film examples, help with argument and fallacies, headnotes) as well as those of progressive philosophy instructors (includes cutting-edge work that interests classical readings on applied ethical issues with race, class, and gender approaches). One of the most useful features of the book are the many film summaries that get at the heart of the moral matter in the film. Film is one of the most effective ways to generate student interest and discussion in the classroom, and no other textbook on the market has more materials to assist the ethics instructor in this regard than Morality Matters. It is one of the hidden gems of this book.