This tab is intended as a resource tab, specifically for a closely curated bibliographically books, chapters and articles on theoretical works. The list includes differing approaches to ethics, ethical theory, and critical theories that touch upon ethics. Carefully selected readings are listed below, with recognition that some works belong in more than one or even two categories. An attempt has been made to include works that are introductory overviews, as well as more advanced works, broadly representative works, and of course key works in each section. The sections below are not listed in any particular order, and are not intended to be exhaustive, though they will continue to grow over the coming months.

For articles that address the application of ethical theories to nursing and nursing practice (theory-into-practice), please see the Ethics in Practice tab. Resources under this tab are more theoretical in nature.

NOTE: There are online encyclopedias of philosophy that provide overviews of topics. For example:

• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Open access.
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online Limited open access. Full access through academic libraries.
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy More technical, advanced. Open access to read; annual membership (currently $25) to download articles.
• St. Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology Open access.
• New Advent: The Catholic Encyclopedia Open Access

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Feminist, Womanist, and Mujerista Ethics

This section contains references from different communities, general feminist, black feminist, black radical feminist, Latina feminist, and feminism in nursing. It includes foundational texts as well as basic and advanced readers.

• Marway, Herjeet and Heather Widows. “Philosophical Feminist Bioethics: Past, Present, and Future.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics (United States) 24, no. 2 (2015): 165–74. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963180114000474.
• Norlock, Kathryn and Jordan Pascoe, “Feminist Ethics.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2025 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2025/entries/feminism-ethics/
• Nussbaum, Martha (2000). Sex & Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195112108.
• Nussbaum, Martha (2000). Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521003858.
• Peña-Guzmán, David M., and Joel Michael Reynolds. 2019. “The Harm of Ableism: Medical Error and Epistemic Injustice.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 29 (3): 205–242. https://doi.org/10.1353/ken.2019.0023.
• Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda. The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, New York: Bold Type Books. 2021. OCLC: 1164503847. ISBN: 9781541724709.
• Robeyns, Ingrid. 2013. “Capability Ethics.” In The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory,2nd ed., edited by Hugh LaFollette and Ingmar Persson, 412–432. New York: Blackwell Publishing. 
• Rogers, Wendy, Jackie Leach Scully, Stacy M. Carter, Vikki Entwistle, Catherine Mills, and Taylor & Francis. Routledge Handbook of Feminist Bioethics. Edited by Wendy Rogers, Jackie Leach Scully, Stacy M. Carter, Vikki Entwistle, and Catherine Mills. Routledge, 2024. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003016885.
•  Rosen, Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America, Revised Edition (New York: Penguin Books, 2000)
• Scully, Jackie Leach, “Feminist Bioethics.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman. URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/feminist-bioethics/&gt;.
• Stoljar, Natalie, and Catriona Mackenzie. Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Streufert, Mary J. Transformative Lutheran Theologies: Feminist, Womanist, and Mujerista Perspectives. Fortress Press, 2010.
• Townes, Emilie Maureen. Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
• Townes, Emilie Maureen. Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care. Continuum, 1998.
• Walker, Margaret Urban. Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics. 2^nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2007.

✑ Feminist Ethics and Nursing

• Kohlen, Helen, and Joan McCarthy, eds. Nursing Ethics: Feminist Perspectives. 1st ed. 2020. Springer International Publishing, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49104-8.
• Liaschenko, J., & Peter, E. (2006). Feminist ethics: a way of doing ethics. In A. Davis, V. Tschudin & L. de Raeve (eds.) Essentials of teaching and learning in nursing ethics: content and methods (pp. 181-190). London: Elsevier.

Ethics of Care

• Assem-Erhaze, Eunice K. 2026. “From Care to Justice: Reframing Nursing Education Through Relational Ethics and Epistemic Inclusion.” Nursing Philosophy 27 (2): e70082. https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.70082.
• Benner, Patricia. “Studying Expert Ethical Comportment and Preserving the Ethics of Care and Responsibility Embedded in Expert Nursing Practice,” Chapter 9, in Fowler, Marsha. Nursing Ethics, 1880s to the Present: An Archeology of Lost Wisdom and Identity. London: Routledge, April 2024. 
• Brannelly, Lizzie Ward, and Nicki Ward, eds. 2015. Ethics of Care: Critical Advances in International Perspective. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447316510.001.0001.&nbsp;
• Edwards, Stephen .D. (2009), Three versions of an ethics of care. Nursing Philosophy, 10: 231-240. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-769X.2009.00415.x
• Engster, Daniel, and Maurice Hamington, eds. Care Ethics and Political Theory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Hankivsky, Olena. Social Policy and the Ethic of Care. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004
• Held, Virginia.  The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Rogers, Chrissie. 2016. Intellectual Disability and Being Human: A Care Ethics Model. Abingdon, UK: RoutledgeScully, Jackie Leach. 2023. “Feminist Bioethics and Disability.” In The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Bioethics, edited by Wendy A. Rogers, Jackie L Scully Stacy M. Carter, Vikki A. Entwistle, and Catherine Mills. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003016885-16.
• Tronto, Joan C. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. Routledge, 2015.Barnes, Marian, Tula

Philosophical Ethics

• Anscombe, G.E.M (Elizabeth). “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Philosophy, 1958, 33: 1–19.
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, R. McKeon (ed.), Random House, 1941.
• Bentham, Jeremy. The Works of Jeremy Bentham, (ed. John Bowring), London, 1838-1843; Reprinted New York, 1962.
• Patricia Benner, “A Dialogue between Virtue Ethics and Care Ethics,” Theoretical Medicine, 23 (1997): 1–15. Also in D.C. Thomasma. (eds.), The Influence of Edmund D. Pellegrino’s Philosophy of Medicine (Dordrecht: Springer Publishing, 1997).
• Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Edited by J. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
• Butler, Joseph, 1726. Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel, London: J. and J. Knapton.
• Carr, David, Arthur, J., and Kristjansson, K (eds.). Varieties of Virtue Ethics, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
• Chappell, Richard Yetter, Darius Meissner, and William MacAskill. An Introduction to Utilitarianism: From Theory to Practice. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2024
• Cureton, Adam. “Treating Disabled Adults as Children: An Application of Kant’s Conception of Respect,” in Richard Dean and Oliver Sensen (eds.), Respect: Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press, 2021, 270–288.
• Cureton, Adam. Respecting Disability, Oxford University Press, 2025a.
• Cureton, Adam, and Thomas E. Hill. “Kant on Virtue and the Virtues,” in Nancy Snow (ed.), Cultivating Virtue, Oxford University Press, 87–110, 2014.
• Feldman, Fred, 1978, “Kantian Ethics,” in his Introductory Ethics, New York: Prentice-Hall, 97–117.
• Foot, Philippa. Virtues and Vices: And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Frankena, William. Ethics. Prentice-Hall Press, 1963.
• Gill, Michael, 2006. The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).
• Hill, Thomas. 1971, “Kant on Imperfect Duty and Supererogation,” Kant Studien, 62: 55–76; reprinted in his Dignity and Practical Reason in Kant’s Moral Theory, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992, 147–175.
• Hill, Thomas. 2000, “Kant on Responsibility for Consequences,” in his Respect, Pluralism and Justice: Kantian Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 155–172.
• Hill, Thomas. 2008, “Kantian Virtue and ’Virtue Ethics’”, in Monika Betzler (ed.), Kant’s Ethics of Virtues, Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 29–60; reprinted in his Virtue, Rules, and Justice: Kantian Aspirations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 129–159.
• Hollander, Samuel, 2019. A History of Utilitarian Ethics: Studies in Private Motivation and Distributive Justice, 1700–1875, London: Routledge, 2019.
• Kant, Immanuel. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764); in Zöller, G., and Louden, R. (eds.), Anthropology, History, and Education, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785); in Gregor, M. (ed.). Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Kant, Immanuel, 1785, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, in Thomas Hill, Jr. and Arnulf Zweig (eds.), Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Løgstrup, Knud E. Ethical Demand (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997).
• MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue, London: Duckworth, 2^nd Edition. 1985.
• Mill, John Stuart. The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, edited by John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963–91), in 33 volumes,
• Mill, John Stuart. 1859. On Liberty, London: Longman, Roberts & Green.
• Mill, John Stuart. 1861 [U]. Utilitarianism, Roger Crisp (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Moore, G.E., 1903, Principia Ethica, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press1988.
• Murdoch, Iris, 1971. The Sovereignty of Good, London: Routledge.
• Nussbaum, M.C., 2004, “Mill between Aristotle & Bentham”, Daedalus, 133(2): 60–8.
• Nussbaum, Martha C., 1990, “Aristotelian Social Democracy,” in R. Douglass, G. Mara, and H. Richardson (eds.), Liberalism and the Good, New York: Routledge, pp. 203–52.
• Nussbaum, Martha C. “Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach,” in The Quality of Life, Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 242–70.
• Polanyi, Michael. The Tacit Dimension (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967).
• Rawls, John, 1971, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Reid, Thomas (1997). An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press LTD, 1997.
• Ross, WD. The Right and the Good, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930.
• Ross, WD. Foundations of Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939.
• Ross, W. D., 1928–29, “The Nature of Morally Good Action,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 29: 251–274.
• Schönecker, Dieter, 2015, Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Shaver, Robert. “The Birth of Deontology,” in Thomas Hurka (ed.), Underivative Duty: British Moral Philosophers from Sidgwick to Ewing, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 126–145.
• Timmons, Mark, 2021, Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Warnock, Mary, 1960, Ethics Since 1900, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Williams, Bernard, 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

✑ Philosophy in Nursing

Lipscomb, Martin. Ed. Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Nursing. Routledge, 2024. 

Philosophy and Personhood

• Carlson, Licia. 2010. The Faces of Intellectual Disability: Philosophical Reflections. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Keith, Helen, and Kenneth D. Keith. 2013. Intellectual Disability: Ethics, Dehumanization, and a New Moral Community. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Kittay, Eva Feder, and Licia Carlson, eds. 2010. Cognitive Disability and Its Challenge to Moral Philosophy. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.Reynolds, Joel Michael. 2022. The Life Worth Living: Disability, Pain, and Morality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Ethical Methodologies & Argument

• Baron, Marcia W., Philip Pettit, and Michael A. Slote. 1997. Three Methods of Ethics: A Debate. Malden, MA: Blackwell
• Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 8th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
• Charon, Rita and Montello, Martha. . Stories Matter: The Role of Narrative in Medical Ethics. Routledge (2002).
• Frank, Arthur W. The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. University of Chicago Press, 1997
• Jonsen, Albert R. and Toulmin, Stephen. The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)
• Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Edited by Thomas E. Hill and Arnulf Zweig. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Levine, Peter. Living Without Philosophy: On Narrative, Rhetoric, and Morality. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
• McPherson, Tristram. Epistemology and Methodology in Ethics. Elements in Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 
• Newton, Adam Zachary. 1995. Narrative Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Nussbaum, Martha Craven. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Rev. ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001
• Rachels, James, and Stuart Rachels. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 9th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2019.
• Sidgwick, Henry. The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan and Co., 1874.
• Sugarman, Jeremy, and Daniel P. Sulmasy, eds. 2010. Methods in Medical Ethics. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
• Toulmin, Stephen E. 2003. The Uses of Argument. Updated ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bioethical Theory, Bioethics, and Core Documents

• Akabayashi, Akira. 2026. “The Legacy of the Four Principles in Clinical Bioethics: A Global Perspective.” The American Journal of Bioethics 26 (3): 82–84. doi:10.1080/15265161.2026.2623862.
• Shana Alexander. “They Decide Who Lives, Who Dies: Medical Miracle Puts Moral Burden on Small Committee,” Life 53, no. 19 (Nov. 9, 1962): 102–125. Text available at: http://www.nephjc.com/news/godpanel (or at) https://books.google.com/books?id=qUoEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA102&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q&f=false
• Beauchamp, Tom L., and James F. Childress. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 8th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
• Beecher, Henry K. “Ethics and Clinical Research,” New England Journal of Medicine. 274, no. 24 (June 1966): 1456–1460.
• Callahan, Daniel. “Religion and the Secularization of Bioethics,” The Hastings Center Report 20, no. 4 (July/August 1990), S2.
• Davis, Anne J. Davis and Mila A. Aroskar, Ethical Dilemmas and Nursing Practice (New York: Appleton‑Century‑Crofts, 1983).
• Davis, Anne J., Marsha D. Fowler, and Mila A. Aroskar. Ethical Dilemmas and Nursing Practice, 5th (last) ed. (New York: Pearson, 2009).
• DeGrazia, David, and Joseph Millum. A Theory of Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
• Duff, RS and A.G. Campbell, “Moral and Ethical Dilemmas in the Special Care Nursery,” New England Journal of Medicine 289, no. 17 (Oct. 25, 1973): 890–894.
• Eckenwiler, Lisa and Cohn, Felicia. The Ethics of Bioethics: Mapping the Moral Landscape. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
• Ellul, Jacques. La Technique ou l’Enjeu du Siècle (Paris: Armand Colin, 1954).
• Ellul, Jacques. The Technological Society, John Wilkinson trans. (New York: Knopf, 1964).
• Engelhardt, H. Tristram . The Foundations of Bioethics, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
• Faden, Ruth and Powers, M. “Health inequities and social justice. The Moral Foundations of Public Health,” Bundesgesundheitsbl – Gesundheitsforsch -Gesundheitsschutz 2008 · 51:151–157 DOI 10.1007/s00103-008-0443-7
• Fry, Sara, Katherine Collopy, and Mary Duffy, The Kennedy Nurse Fellows in Medical and Nursing Ethics, 1976–1996: A Report of Their Professional Accomplishments and Contributions to Health Care Ethics. Unpublished report for the Joseph P. Kennedy,
• Jr. Foundation (Feb. 10, 1996, 1–23)
• Häyry, Heta. The Limits of Medical Paternalism: Social Ethics and Policy Series (London: Routledge, 1991), 5–11.
• Johnson, Terence J. Professions and Power (Cambridge, MA: University of ­ Cambridge
• Press, 1972), 57.
• Jonsen, Albert. The Birth of Bioethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• The Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, Who Should Survive? Publicly ­available at Indiana University Media Collections Online.
• The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Department of Health, Education and Welfare, The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1979).
• Numbers, Ronald L. and Darrel Amundsen, Caring and Curing: Health and ­ Medicinein the Western Religious Traditions (The Lutheran General Health Care System/Macmillan Publishing, 1986).
• Osagie K. Obasogie Obasogie, Osagie, Darnovsky, Marcy Eds.   Bioethics: Toward a New Biopolitics. University of California Press, 2018.
• Pappworth, Maurice Henry Pappworth, “Human Guinea Pigs: A Warning,” Twentieth Century Magazine (1962): 66–75.
• Pappworth, Maurice Henry Pappworth, Human Guinea Pigs: Experimentation on Man (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967).
• Pappworth, Maurice H. “‘Human Guinea Pigs’—a History,” British Medical Journal 301 (December 1990): 1456–1460.
• Pellegrino, Edmund D., and David C. Thomasma. The Virtues in Medical Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. 
• Pope Pius XII, Address to an International Congress of Anesthesiologists (Nov.24, 1957).
• President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, Deciding to Forego Life Sustaining Treatment (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1983). Full text ­ available at: https://­ repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/559344/deciding_to_forego_tx.pdf?sequence=1
• Ramsey, Paul. 1970. The Patient as Person: Explorations in Medical Ethics. New Haven: Yale University Press
• Razumenko, Fedir. “The Genesis and Development of Research Ethics Committees in Canada, 1960–1978,” European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health 78, no. 2 (2021): 330–352, DOI: 10.1163/26667711‑bja10008
• Richie Cristina, . 2019. Principles of Green Bioethics. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
• Swazey, Judith P. and Stephen R. Scher (eds.), Whistleblowing in Biomedical Research: Policies and Procedures Responding to Reports of Misconduct. Report of the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine andBiomedical and Behavioral Research (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1981).
• Starr, Paul. The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a SovereignProfession and the Making of a Vast Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982).
• Stevens, M.L. Tina Stevens “History and Bioethics,” in Franklin Miller, John C. Fletcher, and James M Humber (eds.). The Nature and Prospect of Bioethics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, 2003).
• United States Public Health Service, The USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/index.html
• Vaughn, Lewis. Bioethics : Principles, Issues, and Cases. Oxford University Press, 2020
• Walschots, Michael. “Hutcheson and Kant: Moral Sense and Moral Feeling,” in Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment, Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (eds.) (London: Routledge, 2017), 36–54.
• Wilson, Wylin D. Womanist Bioethics: Social Justice, Spirituality, and Black Women’s Health. New York: NYU Press, 2025.
• Winner, Langdon. Autonomous Technology: Technics‑out‑of‑Control as a Theme in Poitical Thought (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977).
• World Medical Association, Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical Principles for ­ Medical Research Involving Human Subjects, JAMA 310, no. 20 (2013): 2191–2194. DOI:10.1001/jama.2013.281053. PMID 2414171

Political Philosophy and Social Contract Theory

• Boucher, David and Kelly, Paul. “The Social Contract and Its Critics: An Overview,” in The Social Contract from Hobbes to Rawls, ed. D. Boucher and P. Kelly (London: Routledge, 1994), 1–34
• Epstein, Jean B. Public Man, Private Woman. Princeton University Press, 1981.
• Held, Virginia. “Noncontractual Society: A Feminist View,” in Science, Morality and Feminist Theory, ed. M. P. Hanen and K. Nielson, Canadian Journal of Philosophy. Supplement (Calgary, CA: University of Calgary Press, 1987), 111–37.
• Hampton, Jean. Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Hampton, Jean. “Two Faces of Contractarian Thought,” in Contractarianism and Rational Choice; Essays on David Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement, ed. Peter Vallentyne. Cambridge University Press, 1991,31–55.
• Hampton, Jean. “Feminist Contractarianism,” in A Mind of One’s Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, ed. Anthony, Louise M. and Witt, Charlotte E. . 2nd ed.Westview, 2002, 337–68.
• Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Mansbridge, Jane J. Ed. Beyond Self-Interest. University of Chicago Press, 1990
• Matsuda, Mari J. “Liberal Jurisprudence and Abstracted Visions of Human Nature: A Feminist Critique of Rawls’ Theory of Justice,” New Mexico Law Review 16, no. 3 (Fall 1986): 613–30. 
• May, William F. Testing the National Covenant: Fears and Appetites in American Politics. Georgetown University Press, 2011
• Macpherson, Crawford B. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford University Press, 1962.
• Mill, John S. “The Subjection of Women,” in On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998) 469–582.
• Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract. Cornell University Press, 2014), 3.
• Pateman, Carole. The Sexual Contract (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1988).
• Pateman, Carole. “God Hath Ordained to Man a Helper”: Hobbes, Patriarchy and Conjugal Rights,” British Journal of Political Science 19, no. 4 (October 1989):445–63.
• Pateman, Carol. The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1985).
• Pateman, Carole. Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970).
• Plato. Republic, trans. Robin Waterfield (New York: Oxford University Press,1993).
• Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard/Belknap Press, 1972).
• Sample, Ruth Sample. “Why Feminist Contractarianism?” Journal of Social Philosophy 33, no. 2 (2002): 257–81.
• Sievers, Bruce. Civil Society, Philanthropy, and the Fate of the Commons. University Press of New England, 2010
• Silvers, Anita Silvers and Francis, Leslie. “Justice through Trust: Disability and the ‘Outlier Problem’ in Social Contract Theory,” Ethics 116, no. 1, October 2005, 40–41.
• Tronto, Joan. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. Routledge, 1993, 54.
• West, Cornel. Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. The Penguin Press, 2004

✑ Social Contract and Political Theory in Nursing; Democracy and Citizenship

• Fowler, Marsha. Guide to Nursing’s Social Policy Statement. American Nurses Association, 2015.
• Fowler, M.D. (2016), Nursing’s Code of Ethics, Social Ethics, and Social Policy. Hastings Center Report, 46: S9-S12. https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.624
• Reimer-Kirkham, S., & Browne, A. (2006). Toward a critical theoretical interpretation of social justice discourse in nursing. Advances in Nursing Science, 29 (4), 324-339.
• MacDonald, Marjorie. “Exploring Public Health Ethics: Social Justice, Solidarity, and the Common Good,” Chapter 4 in Starzomski, Rosalie, Storch, Janet L., and Rodney, Patricia. Toward a Moral Horizon: Nursing Ethics for Leadership and Practice. 3rd ed. This book is generously offered as free, open access.
• Ulrich, C. M., Grady, C., Hamric, A. B., & Berlinger, N. (Eds.). (2016). Nurses at the table: Nursing, ethics, and health policy [Special supplement]. Hastings Center Report, 46(S1). 

The Common Good (Individual v Community)

• Aquinas. Treatise on Law. Aristotle. Politics. Carnes Lord (trans.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1984.
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, R. McKeon (ed.), Random House, 1941.
• Borg, Stefan. The Return of the Common Good: The Postliberal Project Left and Right. (Routledge Studies in Social and Political Thought). Rutledge, 2025.
• Cahill, Lisa Sowle. “The Catholic Tradition: Religion, Morality, and the Common Good,” Journal of Law and Religion, 1987, 5(1): 75–94. doi:10.2307/1051018
• DeCrane, Suzanne. Ed. Aquinas, Feminism, and the Common Good. Georgetown University Press, 2004.
• Maritain, Jacques. 1947. The Person and the Common Good. Trans. John J. Fitzgerald. Notre Dame Press, 1994.
• McGrath, Michael. Acting for the Common Good: Social Justice in the Light of Catholic Social Teaching . Cascade. 2023.
• Format: Plato. The Republic of Plato. Translated by Allan Bloom. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
• Sacks, Jonathan. Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times. Hatchette, 2020.
• Waheed, Hussain, Kohn, Margaret. The common Good. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [online], 2024. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/common-good/ [small annual fee for this excellent, advanced, resource]
• Plato. The Republic.
• Reder, Michael, Risse, Verena, Hirschbaum, Katharina, Stoll, Georg. Global Common Good: Intercultural Perspectives on a Just and Ecological Transformation. Campus Verlag, 2015

Theological (Religious) Social Ethics, Social Ethics

This section contains references from different faith traditions that specifically focus on the social ethics of those traditions. The references include texts on the Social Ethics Movement per se, as well as texts on the social ethics of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Latino/a Protestant Christianity, Feminist Christian, Mujerista/Latina, Catholic, Daoist, Jainist, Sikh, and Confucian, social ethics. It includes focused as well as comprehensive works.

• Central Hindu College. 1904. Sanatana Dharma: An Advanced Text Book of Hindu Religion and Ethics. Benares: The Board of Trustees, Central Hindu College
• De la Torre, Miguel A. Latina/o Social Ethics: Moving Beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking, (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010).
• Dorff, Elliot N., and Danya Ruttenberg, eds. Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Social Justice. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2010.
• Dorrien, Gary. Social Ethics in the Making: Interpretating an American Tradition. Chischester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Publishing/Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2011.
• Floyd-Thomas, Stacey M. 2006. Mining the Motherlode: Methods in Womanist Ethics. Foreword by Katie G. Cannon. Cleveland, OH: The Pilgrim Press
• Gleig, Ann (28 June 2021). “Engaged Buddhism”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Hanh, Thich Nhat (6 May 2008). “History of Engaged Buddhism”. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge. 6: 29–36.
• Isasi-Díaz, Ada María. Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996
• Jaffer, Irfaan. Traditional Islamic Ethics: The Concept of Virtue and its Implications for Contemporary Human Rights. With a foreword by Liyakat Takim. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2021
• Kohn, Livia. 2004. Cosmos and Community: The Ethical Dimension of Daoism. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press.
• Kotler, Arnold, and Winecoff, eds. 1996. The Engaged Buddhist Reader. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press.
• Lysaught, M. Therese, and Michael McCarthy, eds. Catholic Bioethics and Social Justice: The Praxis of US Health Care in a Globalized World. Foreword by Lisa Sowle Cahill. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press Academic, 2018.
• Miller, Christopher Jain, and Cogen Bohanec, eds. Engaged Jainism: Critical and Constructive Studies of Jain Social Engagement. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2026.
• Novak, David. Jewish Social Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Pew Research Center. How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/06/09/how-the-global-religious-landscape-changed-from-2010-to-2020/
• Queen, Chris; King, Sallie (1996). Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. New York: Albany State University Press. p. 2. ISBN 0-7914-2843-5.
• Rather, Nazim Qayoom. Islamic Social Ethics and Response to Social Evils. Vinayaka Missions Research Foundation. 2022
• Sharma, Arvind. Hindu Narratives on Human Rights. Praeger, 2009.
• Singh, Avatar. Ethics of the Sikhs. Punjabi University, Patiala, 1970.
• Shun, Kwong-Loi and Wong, David. eds. Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2004) 
• Sivaraksa, Sulak. “The Socially Engaged Buddhist Response to Evil.” In Evil and the Transformation of Evil: Buddhist and Western Perspectives, edited by P. J. Ivanhoe and Sung Bae Park, 19–30. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2000.
• Stackhouse, Max L., ed. Christian Social Ethics in a Global Era. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995
• Yanklowitz, Shmuly. The Soul of Jewish Social Justice. Jerusalem: Urim Publications, 2014.
• Socially-Engaged Buddhism (Journal)
• US Conference of Bishops, Themes of Catholic Social Teachings
• Vatican Compendium of Social Doctrines

✑ Theological (Religious) Ethics and Social Ethics in Nursing

• Fowler, Marsha. “Nursing and Social Ethics,” in N.A. Chaska (ed.), The Nursing Profession: Turning Points (St. Louis, MO: C.V. Mosby, 1989), 24–30.
• Fowler, Marsha D., Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham, Rick Sawatzky, and Elizabeth Johnston Taylor. 2012. Religion, Religious Ethics, and Nursing. New York: Springer Publishing Company

Liberation Theology/Ethics

• Alves, Rubem A. (1968). Towards a Theology of Liberation (Thesis). Princeton Theological Seminary. OCLC 27806677.
• Boff, Leonardo, and Clodovis Boff. 1987. Introducing Liberation Theology. Translated by Paul Burns. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books
• Cone, James.  A Black Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, (1970).
• Cummings, George C. L. A Common Journey: Black Theology (USA) and Latin American Liberation Theology. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993.
• Dault, Kira (January 22, 2015). “What Is the Preferential Option for the Poor?”. U.S. Catholic. 80: 46. Archived from the original on July 10, 2020.
• De La Torre, Miguel A. Liberation Theology for Armchair Theologians. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013
• Dussel, Enrique. 2013. Ethics of Liberation: In the Age of Globalization and Exclusion. Edited by Alejandro A. Vallega. Durham, NC: Duke University Press
• Gutiérrez, Gustavo. 1988. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. 15th Anniversary Edition. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 
• Gutiérrez, Gustavo, and Gerhard Ludwig Müller. 2015. On the Side of the Poor: The Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 
• Vest, Jennifer Lisa. Sovereign Wisdom: Generating Native American Philosophy from Indigenous Cultures. New York: Peter Lang, 2024. 

Law and the Legislation of Morality

• Bentham, Jeremy. 2007. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. New York: Dover Philosophical Classics.
• Devlin, Lord Patrick.  The Enforcement of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
• Dworkin, Ronald. “Dworkin, Ronald, 1966, “Lord Devlin and the Enforcement of Morals,” Yale Law Journal, 75(6): 986–1005.
• Fuller, Lon L. 1969. The Morality of Law. Rev. ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press
• Hart, HLA.  The Concept of Law, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1961.
• Stanton-Ife, John. “The Limits of Law,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2022. Online.
• Tuckness, Alex.. Morality as Legislation: Rules and Consequences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Intersectional Theories & Systems of Oppression

• Carastathis Anna. (2008) The invisibility of privilege: A critique of intersectional models of identity. Ateliers de l’Éthique 3(2): 23–38.
• Carastathis Anna. Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons. University of Nebraska Press, 2016. 
• Collins, Patricia Hill. 2019. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Collins, Patricia Hill, and Sirma Bilge. 2020. Intersectionality. 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Crenshaw, Kimberlé. 1989. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989: 139–67
• Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. On Intersectionality: Essential Writings. New York: The New Press, 2017.
• Davis, Angela Y. 1981. Women, Race & Class. New York: Random House.
• Davis, Kathy and Lutz, Helma. The Routledge International Handbook of Intersectionality Studies. Routledge, 2024.
• Hancock, Ange-Marie. 2016. Intersectionality: An Intellectual History. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Kafer, Alison. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
• Kimmel, Michael and Ferber, Abby. Eds. Privilege: A Reader. 4th ed. Rutledge, 2017.
• Lorde, Audre. 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press.
• May, Vivian M. 2015. Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. New York: Routledge.
• Nash, Jennifer and Pinto, Samantha. The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities. Routledge, 2023.
• Woehrle, Lynn M. Intersectionality and Social Change. Emerald Publishing, 2014.

Critical Race Theories

• Bahadur, Rory. A Critical Race Approach to Systemic Inequity. Carolina Academic Press, 2025.
• Bell, Derrick. 2018. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York: Basic Books.
• Crenshaw, Kimberlé et al., eds., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (New York: The New Press, 1995)
• Delgado, Richard, and Jean Stefancic. 2023. Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. 4th ed. New York: New York University Press.
• Guinier, Lani, and Gerald Torres. 2002. The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Identity-Grounded Ethics

• Cone, James. Black Theology and Back Power. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, (1969). 
• Cone, James.  God of the Oppressed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, (1975).
• Deloria, Vine, Jr. 2023. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion. 50th Anniversary ed. Wheat Ridge, CO: Fulcrum Publishing.
• García, Ismael. Dignidad: Ethics Through Hispanic Eyes. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997. 
• Konishi, Emiko, Yahiro, Michiko, Nakajima, Naoko, and Ono, Miki Ono. (2009). “The Japanese Value of Harmony
  and Nursing Ethics,” Nursing Ethics. 16(5), 625-636.
• Ladd, John. 1957. The Structure of a Moral Code: A Philosophical Analysis of Ethical Discourse Applied to the Ethics of the Navaho [Diné] Indians. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
• West, Cornel. Race Matters. 25th anniversary ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 2017.

Ethics, Gender, & Sex

• Farley, Margaret. Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.
• Foucault, Michel. 1978. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Pantheon Books.
• Peddicord, Richard. Gay and Lesbian Rights: A Question: Sexual Ethics or Social Justice? (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1996) 
• Reproductive ethics…
• more to come

Native American, First Nations, Indigenous, Aboriginal Ethics

• Akwesasne Notes, ed. A Basic Call to Consciousness. Summertown, TN: Native Voices, 2005.
• Burkhart, Burkhart. Indigenizing Philosophy through the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures
• Deloria, Vine Jr. Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact; also The Metaphysics of Modern Existence
• Kelly, Leanne Poitras, Bearskin, Mona Lisa Bourque, Downey, Bernice, Perley-Dutcher, Lisa and Chakanyuka, Christina. “Indigenous Nurse Perspectives: Ethical Realities,” Chapter 5 in Starzomski, Rosalie, Storch, Janet L., and Rodney, Patricia. Toward a Moral Horizon: Nursing Ethics for Leadership and Practice. 3rd ed. This book is generously offered as free, open access.
• Martínez, David. Life of the Indigenous Mind: Vine Deloria Jr. and the Birth of the Red Power Movement(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019
• Means, Russell, and Bayard Johnson. If You’ve Forgotten the Names of Clouds, You’ve Lost Your Way: An Introduction to American Indian Thought and Philosophy. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.
• Nelson, Melissa K., ed. 2008. Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future. Rochester, VT: Bear & Company.
• Nerburn, Kent, ed. 1999. The Wisdom of the Native Americans. Novato, CA: New World Library

Critical Discourse Theories

• Fairclough, Norman. 2010. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
• Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon Books. 
• Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon Books
• Jørgensen, Marianne W., and Louise J. Phillips. 2002. Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method. London: SAGE Publications.
• Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer, eds. 2009. Methods of Critical Discourse Studies. 2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications. 

Environmental Ethics & Climate Justice

• Adams, Carol and Gruen, Lori. eds. Ecofeminism: Feminist Interactions with Other Animals and the Earth, 2014
• Burkhart, Brian. Indigenizing Philosophy Through the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures. Michigan State University Press (2019)
• Curry, Partick. Ecological Ethics. 2nd ed.
• Chen, Mel. Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect,2012.
• De Voto, Bernard. DeVoto’s West: History, Conservation, and the Public Good. edited by Edward K. Muller. Ohio University Press, 2005
• Garvey, James. The Ethics of Climate Change: Right and Wrong in a Warming World. 2008.
• Jamieson, Dale. Ethics and the Environment, 2008
• Kohn, Eduardo. How Forests Think: Towards an Anthropology Beyond the Human, 
• Nixon, Rob. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. 2011.
• Pierce, Jessica, and Andrew Jameton. 2003. The Ethics of Environmentally Responsible Health Care. New York: Oxford University Press
• Shukin, Nicole. Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times, 2009.
• Singer, Peter. 1990. Animal Liberation. Rev. ed. New York: New York Review / Random House
• Vandana, Shiva. Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge
• Zimmerman, Michael, et al. Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology. 2004.

Ethics of Power, Economics, Finance, & Global Health

• Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th anniversary ed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Continuum, 2005.
• Hickel, Jason. The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets. New York: W. W. Norton. 2017
• Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt. 2007
• Kwame, Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1965
• Nussbaum, Martha C.  Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2006
• Peet, Richard. Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO. London: Zed Books, 2003
• Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2004
• Prashad, Vijay. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York: The New Press, 2007
• Prashad, Vijay. The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. London: Verso, 2012
• Rodney, Walter. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. London: Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, 1972
• Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999
• Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and Its Discontents. New York: W. W. Norton. 2002

Post-Colonial Theory

• Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. 2nd ed. Routledge, 1994. ISBN 9780415336390
• Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press, 1952 (Fanon, Frantz. Peau Noire, Masques Blancs. Éditions Points, 2015, 235.)
• Fanon, F. (2004). The wretched of the earth (R. Philcox, Trans.). Grove Press. (Original work published 1961)
• Lewis, Reina, & Mills, Sara. (Eds.). (2003). Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader Feminist Postcolonial Theory: A Reader. Routledge.
• Masuzawa, Tomoko. The Invention of World Religions, or, How European universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism.University of Chicago Press. 2005. Online, read only.
• Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
• Said, Edward. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.
• Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Die Philosophin 14, no. 27 (1988): 42–58.