An agenda-setting account of the foundation of ethics that brings together Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, analytic metaethics, and existential thought.

The meaning of the good is the oldest problem in moral philosophy. A pathbreaking work, Good and Evil: A Dialectical Ethics bridges analytic and continental traditions to provide a novel, systematic account of the good that is the formal object of practical knowledge: that which we aim for when we consider the question of how it is good to live.

To elucidate his notion of the good-and its opposite, evil-Sebastian Rödl criticizes some of the most prominent metaethical theories of the last half century. He argues that the answer to the question of how we should live cannot be found in nature, as Aristotelean ethical naturalists such as G. E. M. Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Michael Thompson would have it. Thus, any attempt to naturalize ethics will fail. He argues that the principle of living well is not to be found in the mutual recognition of individuals or communities as free and equal, as suggested by Stephen Darwall and Axel Honneth. And finally, Rödl argues that the foundation of ethics is not to be found in the Kantian claim that each of us is conscious of an unconditional law that is not externally imposed but that instead inheres in ourselves, as Christine Korsgaard has argued.

Rather, in what amounts to a new fundamental theory that he names dialectical ethics, Rödl somewhat unexpectedly turns to the existential thought of figures such as Martin Buber, Emmanual Levinas, and Simone Weil to argue that the foundation of ethics lies in the unilateral and absolute demand that others place upon us. And, he explains, we relate to the good of practical knowledge as we relate to a gift. Ambitious and compelling, Good and Evil is a landmark work of post-Kantian metaethics.