ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines the general lines of the criticism of modern ethics. She looks at what these critics take to be the distinguishing features of ancient and modern forms of moral inquiry. The author aims to detect an ethical view presented as an alternative to the current forms of moral inquiry. She also examines the form of ethical reflection characteristic both of ancient and modem theories. Contemporary criticism of modern moral theories has basically focused on two features of these theories. First, the opponents of modern ethics criticize these theories for concentrating on actions and thus dismissing the personal, agent-related dimension of ethics. Second, they criticize the universalistic and objectivistic justification of morality. In modern moral theories, the domain of morality is carefully defined and strictly separated from the nonmoral one, moral deliberation distinguished from non-moral kinds of reasoning, and moral good from the good or valuable in a non-moral sense.
