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The Beloved Self: Morality and the Challenge from Egoism

The book is 12 chapters long. Only 4 of those chapters contain material dating from pre-2008. The remaining 8 chapters are new. The major original argument of the book is in part 3 (consisting in 4 chapters and a conclusion) and none of that is pre-2008 material.

‘The Beloved Self’ concerns morality, self-interest and moral epistemology, totalling114,600 words. The first part devises new theories of self-interest, paralleling the three major moral theories (utilitarianism, virtue theory and Kant's ethics); the second looks at ambitious attempts to argue that we should act according to moral requirements, not self-interest; the third at more modest attempts . I defend novel claims about moral understanding and moral epistemology. The revision of my PhD thesis (the book’s origin), together with writing part 3 (4 chapters and conclusion), took 7 years. The book is substantially longer and more ambitious than a journal article.