Social Issues : Oxford University Press : 9780195114331 : 0195114337 : 12 Feb 1998 : Given the recent cuts in government budgets, issues such as taxation, welfare, education, health care, Social Security, and environmental protection are drawing increased public awareness. The government programs directed at these issues are the subject of intense debate, with one underlying question: how to divide resources equitably among all members of society. In order for these moral conflicts to be resolved, however, a much better understanding of the moral as well as the economic dimensions of the issues and proposed reforms is needed. Social Issues provides the necessary framework for discussing and resolving today's most pressing social issues. This approach to ethics, termed social ethics, presumes that moral principles should be evaluated in terms of their relevance to a specific situation or social issue. The social ethics approach allows for moral principles to be weighed in the context of