Introduction

Ethics in short is every one’s preserve; it is like a hat which has lost its shape because everybody wears it. Thus a number of quite different problems have each been regarded as the central problem of Ethics, which has been variously defined as the attempt—to discover the good; to find a meaning for the words right and wrong; to find a criterion by which to distinguish right from wrong; to describe the nature of the moral sense; and to lay down rules for moral conduct. Many people who reason about Ethics for the first time are convinced at an early stage by the specious arguments of those who hold that pleasure is the only good, and the only possible object of human desire. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book gives a brief survey of the leading theories of philosophical Ethics.