PREFACE

I have set out in this book to write a clear, brief, and readable introduction to ethics which shall
bring the beginner as directly as possible to grips with the fundamental problems of the subject. I
have therefore, in reducing the material which I had prepared to about half its original length,
left out most of those qualifications, answers to minor objections, and other defences with which
the security-minded philosopher is apt to hedge himself round. Though I think that the approach
to ethics which is sketched in these pages is in general a fruitful one, I shall be less disturbed if
my readers disagree with me than if they fail to understand me. Almost every paragraph in this
book, as in other works of philosophy, requires some qualification; but to supply it on every
occasion would be to make my main contentions difficult to grasp. I have therefore tried to adopt
throughout as definite a standpoint as possible, in the belief that it is more important that there
should be discussion of the points herein raised, than that I should survive it unscathed.
Ethics, as I conceive it, is the logical study of the language lof morals. It is in general easier to
understand the very complex logic of moral terms if one has some acquaintance with the simpler
kinds of logic; but since many students of philosophy are for some reason made to study ethics
without such acquaintance, I have tried not to take it for granted. If anyone approaches this book
without any previous philosophical reading, he will, I hope, find it intelligible if he follows this
simple rule: to omit any passages which he finds difficult, go on reading, and return to them
later. I have included, for the benefit of those who may be interested in them, certain very
cursory references to some of the familiar 'types of ethical theory', and also to the works of some
of the best-known writers on ethics; but these references may be ignored without missing any
essential of my argument. I have put the section on 'The Imperative Mood' first, because it seems
to me the most fundamental; but since it is also perhaps the most difficult, I have, in Part II, not
taken for granted the argument of Part I; any reader, therefore, who wishes to take these two
parts in the reverse order is at liberty to do so.
I have deliberately avoided references to the problems of moral psychology. In particular, the
problem known as 'The Freedom of the Will', which has a place in most introductions to ethics,
is not mentioned, and the problem usually referred to by Aristotle's title Akrasia, which should
be discussed more often than it is, is mentioned only in passing. This is not because I consider
these problems unimportant, nor because I have nothing to say about them, but because they are
rather problems of the language of the psychology of morals, than of the language of morals
itself.
My thanks are due, in the first place, to the Master and Scholars of Balliol College, for their
generosity in giving me, during the year 1950-1, the relief from my teaching duties without
which the task could never have been completed. Secondly, I have to thank the examiners of the
T. H. Green Moral Philosophy Prize, Professors H. J. Paton and G. Ryle, and Mr. P. H. NowellSmith, for their many helpful comments on my dissertation for the prize, of which Part I of this
book is an abridgement. Thirdly, I owe acknowledgement to those many at Oxford and
elsewhere, in the course of discussion with whom I have learnt most of what is here set out; my
debt to Mr. J. O. Urmson, for example, will be obvious. I have especial reason to be grateful to
Mr. D. Mitchell and Professorsr H. L. A. Hart, A. J. Ayer and A. E. Duncan-Jones, who have
read part or all of my typescript and saved me from serious errors -- for those which may remain
I ask forgiveness. The latter's paper to the Aristotelian Society on 'Truth and Commands'
appeared too late to allow any comment in the text; and the same is true of Professor Everett
Hall's book What is Value?, in which the subject of the present book is examined on a more
ambitious scale. For a discussion of Professor Hall's views I must refer the reader to a
forthcoming review in Mind. I have also to thank Mr. B. F. McGuinness for help in compiling
the Index. Lastly, in case brevity should seem to have led to dogmatism in dealing with the
writings of philosophers both living and dead, and to injustice towards their doctrines, I must
confess that I have learnt as much from those writers with whom I may appear to disagree, as
from those whom I applaud.
I dedicate this study of moral language to those good men and women without whose lives the
moralist would be wasting his breath, and especially to my wife.