Abstract

A foundational debate in ethics concerns the balance between our general moral obligations to everyone and our specific moral obligations to a smaller subset of people: our family, our nation, our friends, our coworkers, etc. There has been longstanding tension—if not outright contradiction—between the moral intuition that equality entails that we have identical moral duties to everyone and the moral intuition that special obligations entail that we have much greater duties to those people closer to us. This tension is the theoretical background puzzle that is expressed in dozens of practical political and ethical dilemmas. Practical applied ethics concerning issues in immigration, the family, religion, and business frequently stem from this foundational issue. This book has 13 chapters divided into four sections: Overarching Visions of Partiality, How Roles and Relationships Might Shape Partiality, The Moral Dangers of Partiality, and Specific Applications of Partiality.