Abstract
The purpose of this book is to develop a critique of ethical theory grounded in what Flanagan calls "psychological realism." This realism requires the rejection of any ethical theory or ideal which prescribes a character, decision-making process, or behavior, that is impossible for "creatures like us". It is Flanagan's view that "the two main models of moral excellence in philosophy"--"the fully virtuous person" imagined in most virtue theories and "the principled reasoner," assumed by both of the main branches of rule theory--are incoherent, the products of misinformed "common sense" and outdated philosophical psychologies. It is his goal to put moral theory on the more solid ground of scientific psychology and contemporary philosophical psychology.