Abstract

Those attempting to expound a comprehensive normative ethical theory are presumably motivated by the belief that there should be an ultimate reason people can give for their actions and a final response to the question of why we should act morally. Historically, one candidate for this ultimate end or reason is self-realization. To convince us of his theory the self-realizationist must successfully explicate the notion of the self—i.e., he must tell us what man’s distinctive nature or function is—and he must have something to say about the perfecting of this self.