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<p>Prolegomenon xi</p> <p>1. Philosophical anthropology and the investigation of value xi</p> <p>2. The sinopia for a fresco xvi</p> <p>Acknowledgements xxiv</p> <p><b>Part I Of Good and Evil 1</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 1 The Roots of Value and the Nature of Morality 3</b></p> <p>1. The place of values in a world of facts 3</p> <p>2. Varieties of goodness 8</p> <p>3. The framework of moral goodness 17</p> <p>4. Morality 24</p> <p>5. Individual critical morality 30</p> <p><b>Chapter 2 The Roots of Morality and the Nature of Moral Goodness 33</b></p> <p>1. Moral goodness 33</p> <p>2. The roots of moral value 38</p> <p>3. Respect 46</p> <p>4. The relative permanence of the virtues 58</p> <p>5. Constants in human nature 61</p> <p><b>Chapter 3 The Roots of Evil 65</b></p> <p>1. The horror! 65</p> <p>2. The grammar of evil: preliminary clarification 76</p> <p>3. Philosophical problems: does evil exist? 83</p> <p>4. Philosophical problems: can evil be explained? 89</p> <p><b>Chapter 4 Explanations of Evil 101</b></p> <p>1. The variety of explanations 101</p> <p>2. Reasons and motives for doing evil 103</p> <p>3. Can evil be a motive? 115</p> <p>4. Knowledge of good and evil 121</p> <p>5. Experimental psychology: Milgram’s and Browning’s explanations of evil‐doing 125</p> <p><b>Chapter 5 Evil and the Death of the Soul 129</b></p> <p>1. Body, mind, and soul 129</p> <p>2. The death of the soul 138</p> <p>3. Forgiveness and self‐forgiveness 143</p> <p>4. Evil and the unforgivable 148</p> <p>5. From soul to soul: trisecting an angle with compass and rule 152</p> <p><b>Part II Of Freedom and Responsibility 155</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 6 Fatalism and Determinism 157</b></p> <p>1. Of fate and fortune 157</p> <p>2. Fatalism 162</p> <p>3. Nomological determinism 169</p> <p>4. Flaws in reductive determinism 173</p> <p>5. The random and the determined 177</p> <p><b>Chapter 7 Neuroscientific Determinism, Freedom, and Responsibility 179</b></p> <p>1. Neuroscientific determinism 179</p> <p>2. Explanations of human behaviour: a recapitulation 182</p> <p>3. Neuroscientific explanation and its limits 188</p> <p>4. How possible, not why necessary 192</p> <p>5. Varieties of responsibility 196</p> <p>6. Elaboration 201</p> <p>7. Irresistible impulse and temptation 203</p> <p><b>Part III Of Pleasure and Happiness 207</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 8 Pleasure and Enjoyment 209</b></p> <p>1. Varieties of hedonism 209</p> <p>2. Pleasure, enjoyment, and being pleased 212</p> <p>3. Pleasure, pain, and the pleasures of sensation 219</p> <p>4. Enjoyment and the pleasures of activities 224</p> <p>5. Pleasure, desire, and satisfaction 229</p> <p>6. Comparability and quantification 231</p> <p>7. First‐person judgements of pleasure 235</p> <p>8. The hedonic life 237</p> <p><b>Chapter 9 Happiness 243</b></p> <p>1. The linguistic terrain 243</p> <p>2. A distinct idea of happiness 246</p> <p>3. A clear idea of happiness 250</p> <p>4. Preconditions of happiness 263</p> <p>5. The epistemology of happiness 266</p> <p>6. Two philosophical traditions 269</p> <p>7. Happiness and morality 276</p> <p><b>Chapter 10 The Science of Happiness 281</b></p> <p>1. From eighteenth‐century crudity and back again 281</p> <p>2. How happiness is understood by happiness scientists 286</p> <p>3. Psychological and epistemological presuppositions</p> <p>of the science of happiness 290</p> <p>4. Measuring happiness 294</p> <p>5. Some results of the science of happiness 298</p> <p><b>Part IV Of Meaning and Death 305</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 11 The Need for Meaning 307</b></p> <p>1. Meaning 307</p> <p>2. The primacy of loss of meaning and the sense of meaninglessness 313</p> <p>3. The roots of meaninglessness 316</p> <p>4. Does life have a meaning? 326</p> <p>5. Finding meaning in human life 329</p> <p><b>Chapter 12 The Place of Death in Human Life 334</b></p> <p>1. What is death? 334</p> <p>2. An afterlife 338</p> <p>3. The valuelessness of life 341</p> <p>4. The value of life 344</p> <p>5. Living for ever 349</p> <p>6. Thanatophobia – the fear of death 353</p> <p><b>Appendices</b></p> <p><b>Appendix 1: On Animal Beliefs and Animal Morality 361</b></p> <p>1. Animal morality 361</p> <p>2. Animal thinking, animal thoughts, and animal memory 364</p> <p>3. Counter‐arguments and their rebuttal 367</p> <p>4. Animal knowledge of other animals’ minds 378</p> <p>5. Animal emotions 384</p> <p><b>Appendix 2: Diabology: Satan, Lucifer, and the Devil in Western Thought 390</b></p> <p><b>Appendix 3: Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil 398</b></p> <p><b>Appendix 4: The Pictorial Representation of Pleasure in Western Art 407</b></p> <p>Index 412</p>

<p><b>P.M.S. Hacker</b> is the leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. He has also written extensively on philosophy of neuroscience and philosophy of language. He is Emeritus Research Fellow at St John’s College, Oxford and holds an Honorary Professorship at University College London’s Institute of Neurology. He has held both British Academy and Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowships and visiting chairs in North America. He is author of more than twenty books and over 160 papers, including the preceding three volumes in the <i>Human Nature</i> tetralogy: <i>Human Nature</i> (2007), <i>The Intellectual Powers</i> (2013), and <i>The Passions</i> (2018).</P>

<p>Values play an essential role in human life. We are moral agents, responsible for our deeds and misdeeds. We pursue pleasure and happiness, and strive to live meaningful lives. <i>The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature</i> is a philosophical investigation of these distinctive aspects of the human condition. In this fourth and final volume of his remarkable study in philosophical anthropology, eminent philosopher P. M. S. Hacker reflects upon moral agency, the pursuit of happiness, and mortality.</p><p><i>The Moral Powers</i> is divided into four thematic sections which explore our moral life and its significance. The first of these investigates the roots of goodness and situates virtue and vice in relation to other categories of value, paying particular attention to the nature of evil and forgiveness. In the second, Hacker considers freedom and responsibility as presupposed by good and wicked deeds, surveying fatalism, determinism, and the logic of responsibility. Subsequent sections relate hedonism and eudaimonism to morality, and the volume concludes with an examination of the meaning of life and the significance of death. Throughout the book, Hacker draws upon plentiful examples in the Western literary canon to enliven and illuminate his arguments. Detailed appendices enrich the text with critical discussions of animal thought and reasoning, diabology, and Hannah Arendt’s doctrine of the banality of evil.</p><p>The triumphant final instalment in Hacker’s acclaimed <i>Human Nature</i> tetralogy, <i>The Moral Powers</i> is essential reading for moral philosophers, philosophers of mind, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, students of literature, and general readers with an interest in understanding who and what we are.</P>

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