The comments on and criticisms of The Moral Problem offered in the articles by David Brink, David Copp, and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord convince me that my book would have been much better – clearer, less likely to mislead, more likely to convince – if only I had been able to read their articles before putting pen to paper (well, finger to keyboard, actually). Unfortunately, this was not to be, and so The Moral Problem exists in its present form. The question on which I wish to focus is just how serious their objections to the main line of argument pursued in The Moral Problem really are.

Although the criticisms advanced are often very different, there are several points on which they are more or less agreed: the argument I give for the claim that moral judgements must themselves conform to a practicality requirement at the very least needs more spelling out; the account I give of the fully rational agent requires more justification; my claim that our beliefs about our normative reasons, and our moral beliefs, have the content that I say that they have requires more in the way of defense; and my claim that our evaluative beliefs, even when their content is conceived of in the way I suggest, can rationally produce desires in us requires more in the way of clarification and defense as well. There are other complaints too, but these seem to be the main ones.