John Rist surveys the history of ethics from Plato to the present and offers a vigorous defence of an ethical theory based on a revised version of Platonic realism. In a wide-ranging discussion he examines well-known alternatives to Platonism, in particular Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume and Kant as well as contemporary 'practical reasoners', and argues that most post-Enlightenment theories of morality (as well as Nietzschean subversions of such theories) depend on an abandoned Christian metaphysic and are unintelligible without such grounding. He also argues that contemporary choice-based theories, whether they take a strictly ethical or more obviously political form, are ultimately arbitrary in nature. His lively and accessible 2001 study is informed by a powerful sense of philosophical history, and will be of interest to both students and scholars of ethics.

约翰•M•瑞斯特是多伦多大学的哲学和古典学荣誉教授。他出版的著作包括《普罗提诺：通往现实之路》（剑桥大学出版社，1967）、《亚里士多德的思想》（多伦多大学出版社，1989）、《奥古斯丁：被洗礼的古代思想》（剑桥大学出版社，1994）。另外，他还发表了许多学术论文。