Nicholas Rescher's Ethical Idealism stands with the finest work on ethics produced by the pragmatism movement in philosophy. Rescher's ethical idealism has a pragmatically realistic basis. Beyond calculations of what will be, and beyond estimations of what may be, the actual consequences of acts can be barely imaginable and perhaps even unimaginable to the actor. Ethical ideals state what should guide how a person's conduct shall be. Among ethical ideals, the simplest kind is the 'moral idealization'. For definitive ethical theories, consequences of choices have to be foreseeable, moral duties can become obvious, and moral tragedy has to somehow be avoidable. Constructive ethical theories advance projective ethical ideals, ideals shaping long-term and even lifetime projects. Conclusive ethical ideals are better fitted to short-term situations of narrow scope. That kind of ideal, expressed in general form, proposes that 'this moral duty takes priority in this manner'.