First Things: An Inquiry into the First Principles of Morals and Justice

Description

This book restores to us an understanding that was once settled in the "moral sciences": that there are propositions, in morals and law, which are not only true but which cannot be otherwise. It was understood in the past that, in morals or in mathematics, our knowledge begins with certain axioms that must hold true of necessity; that the principle

"First Things is, without question, an important essay in moral philosophy... A powerful counterattack on the decayed, sophistic moral reasoning of our time."--Crisis "Here [Arkes] shows an unusual grasp of everyday realities. A sharp, savvy argument for quasi-eternal verities in a relativistic world."--Philadelphia Inquirer