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Professor Fullerton's handbook offers a well-organized and judicious presentation of the subject-matter it announces the outstanding issues of ethical theory. In point of content it differs somewhat from most other recent texts in ethics. It makes no attempt to trace the development either of morality or of ethical theory, or to analyze at any great length the concrete problems that confront individuals in their daily life. Nevertheless it puts to constant and skillful use the facts which such students as Westermarck and Hobhouse have assembled in the field of comparative morality. Its references to historical ethical systems, moreover, are numerous, and an entire section, Part VII, is devoted to "The Schools of the Moralists," the chapters being entitled "Intuitionism," "Egoism," "Utilitarianism," "Nature, Perfection, Self-Realization," "The Ethics of Evolution," "Pessimism," and "Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche." In the course of the discussion, furthermore, numerous concrete ethical problems are touched upon, and there are brief chapters on "The Ethics of the Individual" and "International Ethics." Fairly consistently, however, all this material is utilized to introduce general ethical questions and to vindicate either specific answers or at least the use of certain principles and methods for the discovery of such answers.

Part I illustrates the divergencies manifested both in the ideals of communities and in the codes of the classical moralists, and argues that, if we would not make our estimates of comparative worth arbitrarily, we must assume the critical and reflective tasks of the ethicist. The nature of ethics, its method, materials and aims, are discussed in Part II. This is followed by an account of man's nature and the material and social environment in which it takes form and expresses itself. Part IV, "The Realm of Ends," centers about the nature and the relation to one another of impulse, desire and will, and likewise of intention and motive. Parts V and VI are of pivotal significance: the one describes the characteristics and the expressions of the social will and considers the question as to who are properly sharers in it; the other discusses "The Real Social Will" under the chapter headings "The Imperfect Social Will," "The Rational Social Will," and "The Individual and the Social Will." Following Part VII, mentioned above, are seven concluding chapters brought together under the title, "The Ethics of the Social Will."