ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book assesses some important social structures in terms of reciprocity. The reciprocity is a fundamental virtue, not an ornament, but an essential component of our capacity to construct and sustain a productive social life. Potent social structures ought not to damage or inhibit reciprocity, they ought rather to engender and enhance it. In this book, the choice of topics here was controlled by theoretical rather than practical concerns. A very common form of moral theorizing tries to get closure on moral questions by appeal to a single principle, or ordered set of principles. The caricature that lurks behind it is the idea of mechanical jurisprudence. The general conception of morality is hostile to simplification. It insists that moral theory reflect the full complexity of moral life, in all-things-considered deliberation.
