Real Ethics

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. Language: English