Applied ethics is that intellectual locale where theory meets praxis. Moral Dilemmas in Real Life is designed to make that meeting point explicit, by presenting a series of issues in well-grounded philosophical formulations.
The book begins with the general relation between the individual and society – instilling ethical tension, and even clashes, between the private and the public in our discourse. Going on, from general to specific, it gradually narrows the ethical playing field to touch on medical ethics, the family, and the practice of punishment. In all cases, the book addresses both consensual and conventional social institutions and distortions thereof.