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.

約翰•M•瑞斯特是多倫多大學的哲學和古典學榮譽教授。他齣版的著作包括《普羅提諾：通往現實之路》（劍橋大學齣版社，1967）、《亞裏士多德的思想》（多倫多大學齣版社，1989）、《奧古斯丁：被洗禮的古代思想》（劍橋大學齣版社，1994）。另外，他還發錶瞭許多學術論文。