"In a spirited and wide-ranging defence of ethical theory, Sorell combines sympathetic understanding and penetrating criticism. Both sceptics about theory and proponents of new paradigms will need to engage with his arguments."
--Jimmy Altham, University of Cambridge

"Sorell convincingly shows how certain issues in applied ethics create anomalies. Do these anomalies result in a justified scepticism toward traditional ethical theory? No, but the claims of traditional theory must be more modest. A subtle and persuasive piece of philosophy."
--Norman Bowie, The London Business School

Tom Sorell is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex. In 1996-7 he was Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard University and he has published extensively in moral theory and applied ethics, philosophy of science and the history and historiography of early modern philosophy. His previous books include Moral Theory and Capital Punishment (Blackwell, 1987); Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science (1991); and Hobbes (1986).