Louden's book suggests that the aridity of twentieth-century ethical theory may be coming to an end. Not only is the book remarkably readable for an academic work in philosophy, it also combines serious analytical issues with real matters of substance. The biggest shortcoming is that he spends more time discussing his colleagues' views than presenting his own positive views: I hope that he will follow up with future work laying out his own moral theory. Louden does not quite yet rank with my three favorite modern works in ethical theory (Donagan's Theory of Morality, Mackie's Ethics and Rand's Virtue of Selfishness), but this book is definitely worth reading.

Dave Miller