Many people think about, and talk about, morality: journalists, novelists, social scientists, doctors, lawyers, and theologians. Most of their thinking and talking is either polemical—attacking or defending morality or proclaiming a "new" morality—or it is concerned with some popular, practical moral issue like abortion, euthanasia, or war. The author of Thinking About Morality believes that, to be helpful and sound, such moral thinking must be done in the context of a general theory or systematic philosophy of morality—something moral philosophers have long been trying to provide. In this book the author offers much of his own basic theory of morality, hoping that it will be of use to his readers in their thinking about morality, whatever the nature of their interest may be.

William K. Frankena has taught philosophy at the University of Michigan since 1937 and since 1974 has held the Roy Wood Sellars professorship in that discipline. This book is based on a series of lectures delivered by Professor Frankena in 1978 as first Distinguished Senior Faculty Lecturer of the University’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.