Real Ethics Reconsidering the Foundations of Morality

John Rist surveys the history of ethics from Plato to the present and offers a vigorous defence of an ethical theory based on a revised version of Platonic realism. In a wide-ranging discussion he examines well-known alternatives to Platonism, in particular Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume and Kant as well as contemporary 'practical reasoners', and argues that most post-Enlightenment theories of morality (as well as Nietzschean subversions of such theories) depend on an abandoned Christian metaphysic and are unintelligible without such grounding. He also argues that contemporary choice-based theories, whether they take a strictly ethical or more obviously political form, are ultimately arbitrary in nature. His lively and accessible 2001 study is informed by a powerful sense of philosophical history, and will be of interest to both students and scholars of ethics.

Introduction; 1. Moral nihilism: Socrates vs. Thrasymachus; 2. Morals and metaphysics; 3. The soul and the self; 4. Division and its remedies; 5. Rules and applications; 6. The past, present and future of practical reasoning; 7. Autonomy and choice; 8. Ethics and ideology; 9. God and ethics.

John Rist is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Classics, University of Toronto. His publications include Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (1994) and many journal articles.