Most recent texts in moral philosophy have either concentrated on practicalmoral issues or else if theoretical have tended toward onesidedpresentations of recen... » 

Most recent texts in moral philosophy have either concentrated on practicalmoral issues or else if theoretical have tended toward onesidedpresentations of recent fashionable views. Discussions of applied ethicscannot go very far without revealing underlying philosophical assumptions abouthow deeper more general issues are treated. Similarly recent approaches toethics are difficult to understand without a knowledge of the context of thehistorical views against which these approaches are reacting.The Nature of Moral Thinking will satisfy the intellectually curious studentproviding a solid and fair discussion of the classical philosophical questionsabout our moral thinking surveying the main types of metaethical andnormative ethical theories while not excluding the more recent discussions ofmoral realism of antirealism and of virtue morality. Francis Snaredemonstrates that glib intellectualistic thinking about morality especially inregard to relativism andsubjectivism is seriously flawed. He also focusesattention on the question of whether particular theories of the origins ofmorality for example those of Nietzsche and Marx undermine morality.All students and teachers of ethics and philosophy will find this book one ofthe most complete and detailed introductorylevel surveys of the foundations ofethics with emphasis on the problems of the subjectivity the relativity andthe origins of morality. «