ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the points raised in the various papers of this volume as they bear on and help to clarify these central issues. It argues that a conception of the autonomy of ethics that is not isolationist. The reflections are accordingly ordered along the following lines: the place of science within ethical theory, the place of values within ethical theory, toward a broader conception of morality itself, the problem of method in ethical theory, and the relations of theory and practice. A basic context for controversy about the relation of theory and practice is of course that of political philosophy and political policy. Turning from the temptations of spiritual autobiography to the theory of political outlooks, the chief lesson of twentieth-century confrontations of politcal philosophies seems to be that it is a mistake to treat them as monolithic.
