Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception

This book develops a conception of good and evil as absolute. However its emphasis is not on whether some things are absolutely forbidden but on our need of an adequate conception of the preciousness of each individual being, which was once expressed in the belief that all human beings are sacred. It argues that this is possible only with a serious conception of remorse - that an adequate conception of remorse, of absolute value and of human preciousness are interdependent. It develops a conception of good and evil as different in kind from all other values while emphasizing its dependence on certain natural human reactions, affections and attachments, and while also emphasizing the connection between questions about the nature of good and evil and questions about the meaning of our lives. At another level, there is continuous reflection on the nature of ethical thinking, of what it is for such thinking to deepen, on the nature of philosophical reflection and its relation to the understanding of good and evil which exists outside philosophy, and on the place of reason and truth.