Almost everybody has a conscience, though it may not play a dominating or even very prominent role in his life. To have a conscience is to classify some kinds of action as morally right and others as morally wrong, and to be disposed to do the former and avoid doing the latter. To judge an action as morally right or wrong is not to judge it as advantageous or disadvantageous to the agent; the motive for acting conscientiously cannot be pure (...) self-interest. It is a mark of my thinking an action morally right that I am disposed to do it even though doing it will involve me in a net loss of enjoyment or a net surplus of suffering. A man who is only disposed to do such things as he thinks will increase his happiness in the long run has no conscience. Conscience presents itself to a person as a kind of constraint which he cannot evade on the ground that it will be inconvenient to comply with it. (shrink)

Originally published in 1950. For those interested in the fundamental problems of philosophy but not familiar with its technicalities, this book introduces the main type of theory in metaphysics, not by a catalogue of philosophers' opinions but by a continuous train of reasoning. The central theme is the problem of the relation between Mind and Matter, and in the course of the argument there are discussions of mechanistic materialism, of idealism and our knowledge of the external world, and of the (...) arguments for the existence of God. The problems are presented lucidly but without over-simplification. (shrink)