From Confucianism to Kant's categorical imperative, from the Ancient Greeks to Amnesty International, This essential volume presents ethics through a fascinating global historical lens and relates it to everyday life and 21st-century politics. Peter Cave traces the development of this key branch of philosophy up to the present day, introducing readers to all the main schools of thought. With his characteristic wit and clarity, Cave takes on good and evil, power and politics, and liberalism and relativism, and handily guides us around some of the most common potholes in ethical reasoning. Applying theory to contemporary concepts like corporate social responsibility and bioethical issues such as so-called designer babies, this is an indispensable primer on the subject.