The main theme of this book is the challenge to ethics from philosophical scepticism and from contemporary forms of consequentialism. But in seeking to meet this challenge, the book develops a sustained philosophical argument about many of the central questions of ethics. It reviews classical positions, and challenges some long-influential interpretations of those positions. It also revies and participates in some recent developments and controversies in Anglo-American ethical theory. The activity of ethical theorizing itself is shown to be a matter of free and intelligent decision, in pursuit of an intelligible good; it thus provides a test case for any ethical theory.

Many people have questions they need to find answers for and this book explores some fundamental questions such as;

- Are we entitled to be confident that our moral judgments can be objective?
- Can they express insights into aspects of reality, rather than mere feelings, tastes, desires, decisions, upbringing, or conventions?
- Why must we consider some of our choices to be free, and how do our free choices matter?
- How far should our moral judgments be based on assessments of expected consequences?
- Can utilitarianism, and other consequentialist or proportionalist theories, be anything more than the rationalization of positions taken on other grounds?