This book has been part of my life for many years. Many of its claims and arguments have been explored in one form and another with varied audiences, and discussed with sceptical but patient friends. I am grateful and hope that I have learnt from them, as well as from many colleagues who have taken time to comment on drafts and articles in which stretches of the argument have been presented.

For long-drawn-out work it is not only the many audiences of each year, but sustaining institutions and friendships which matter most. Throughout the 1980s I was lucky enough to find at the University of Essex colleagues who took seriously my growing suspicions that much recent writing in ethics and political philosophy is disoriented, and that much that it presents as practical reasoning is neither practical nor reasoned. They also took seriously my stubborn refusal to assuage these suspicions by settling for relativist or postmodernist conclusions, or to concede that we must either advocate justice or befriend the virtues, but that we cannot coherently do both. I thank them for years of discussion, criticism and encouragement.

The leisure to start the book I owe to the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, where I spent the memorable year 1989/90. In spite of the many distractions of those politically riveting months, this proved a good time and place for writing. I am grateful to the Rektor, Professor Wolf Lepenies, and to the Fellows who formed the philosophischen Kreis, for a rare opportunity to write intensively and talk companionably.