Abstract

The two most conspicuous features of the rather hectic activity in contemporary moral philosophy seem to be these: First, while eleventh-hour attempts are still being made to salvage foundationalism in some Kantian sense, center stage is held by the debate between partisans of a pallid, if ironic, liberal solidarity and defenders of the supposedly vivid authority, or authoritarianism, of shared traditions and life-practices. And yet, second, jettisoning rational foundations has not meant abandoning all sense of the reasonableness of the "moral" requirements inherent in the descriptive or prescriptive frameworks being championed. The search is still on for apposite tracings of those textures of moral/ethical life such that it appears reasonable, if not ultimately justified, for an agent to adhere to some array of norms, prescriptions, laws, recommendations, or, at the least, beliefs about what is good.