Abstract

This handsome tome comprises twelve original contributions together with a detailed introduction by the editors. The anthology begins with Jan Narveson’s wide-ranging survey of the theses of universalizability. He begins with the claim that morality somehow involves universalizability because it ensures consistency. Implicit in this essay and throughout the volume is the assumption that morality consists of rules and principles. Consequently, moral philosophy is the search for and elucidation of such rules and principles. Though Narveson acknowledges that there are those that have thought that character is more important, he brushes this exception aside. Narveson arrives at the conclusion that a rule “is an acceptable moral rule only if there is sufficient reason in terms of their own values, for all moral agents who have reason to decline the ruleless state to accept” it.