ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by drawing attention to an increasingly shrill, moralistic strain in public discourse, a moralism that is both self-righteous and dogmatic. People, who believe that moral judgments can be objectively true or false, believe that the true ones are true only if they can be supported by good evidence. They think evidence needs to be examined, and reasons on both sides considered. Philosophers face many new and difficult choices, and many people see these as moral choices. “Why be moral?” is a surprisingly good place to begin an introduction to moral philosophy. One reason is that there is no way to answer this question, or even to discuss it intelligently, without raising and investigating a number of other important issues in moral philosophy. A second reason for starting with this question has to do with the contemporary cultural and political climate.
