A statement in contemporary terms of an Aristotelian approach to ethics, spiced with numerous illustrations from the modern arts and sciences. Veatch attempts to persuade the reader of the importance of the moral and intellectual virtues for leading an ethical life, and ends with a definition of the good "simply as the perfect with respect to the imperfect, the complete with respect to the incomplete, the actual with respect to the potential". He argues against ethical relativism and scepticism, Platonic "intellectualism", (...) Utilitarianism, the contemporary second-intentional linguistic approach, and certain aspects of existentialism.--A. S. H. (shrink)