Practical Ethics

Hyde, William De Witt, 1858-1917Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 286K words
Chapters: 29

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Practical Ethics by William De Witt HydeAuthor: Hyde, William De Witt, 1858-1917,Language: English, Class: BJ: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Ethics, Social usages, Etiquette, Religion, Release Date: Jan 20, 2008

Editor's review

Practical Ethics is an ethics work written by William DeWitt Hyde in the late nineteenth to early twentieth century and is a free public-domain book from Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in proposing cutting-edge theory but in showing how ethical principles were applied to everyday character, professional responsibility, and social relations in that period. The language is relatively plain, and the chapters are mostly organized around specific virtues, making it suitable as introductory material for ethics and as a bridge for reading English primary texts. Readers can use it to observe how ethics moves from abstract principles to lived practice, and can compare it with contemporary applied ethics issues to consider which arguments still hold and which presuppositions have become outdated.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Beginners in general ethics or philosophy courses
Students who want to practice reading English philosophical primary texts
Readers interested in late nineteenth-century moral education writing
General readers who need material for everyday ethical discussion

Not a good fit for

Specialist readers seeking cutting-edge research in contemporary applied ethics
Readers hoping for a systematic Chinese translation
Readers who prefer rigorous analytic philosophical argumentation

Reading tips

Read in the order of chapter themes; after each chapter, summarize its core claims in your own words.
Compare the book's views with specific contemporary ethical controversies and write down one point of agreement and one of doubt.
For English reading, first identify each paragraph's topic sentence, then review the examples, to improve reading efficiency.
Reading with others and discussing regularly helps reveal the book's period presuppositions and gaps in argument.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is there a Chinese translation of this book?

The information shows that the original is in English and Project Gutenberg provides an English electronic edition; no Chinese translation is mentioned. Readers who need Chinese should look separately for a formally published translation.

Is it suitable for someone with no background in ethics?

It can serve as introductory supplementary reading, since the language is relatively plain and it often starts from specific virtues; but it is not a systematic textbook, so it is advisable to pair it with a contemporary introduction to ethics and first establish a basic conceptual framework.

Are the book's views still applicable today?

Some discussions of honesty, responsibility, and character still have reference value, but their historical context and social presuppositions need to be viewed critically and should not be used directly as contemporary ethical conclusions.

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About the author

Hyde, William De Witt, 1858-1917 Author · American · 1858–1917

William De Witt Hyde (1858–1917) was an American educator who served as president of Bowdoin College and wrote on ethics and university education. Two of his works are included here: The Five Great Philosophies of Life and Practical Ethics. Judging by their subjects, his writing addresses the philosophy of life and moral practice, focusing on how philosophical ideas can guide everyday ethical judgment; his style tends toward exposition for students and general readers rather than specialized scholarly inquiry. Public information is limited, so details of his life and scholarly influence are difficult to describe in depth, yet these two works show his effort to connect philosophical reflection with moral education, and they offer some reference value for understanding ethics teaching in American colleges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.