Recovery of Purpose

This book aims to remedy the breakdown in the intelligibility of ethical theory well charted by MacIntyre and others. This aim is pursued through analyses of the phenomenology of morality, of its relation to our generic nature, of the historical cultural divorce between secularism and inherited spirituality, of ways of overcoming this via renewed understanding of the role of love and benevolence in particular. There follows critical discussion of remedies proposed by J. Finnis and G. Grisez, and by P.T. Geach. The work concludes with a defence of human rights based on the worth of the person, finally buttressed by a defence of the need for an external ethical instance as pledge of society's commitment to the good life.