Includes bibliographical references and index.

I. Human beings quest for happiness
Definition of ethics
The methods of ethics
Division of ethics
Relationship between ethics and other areas of study

II. THE PERSON AND THE HUMAN ACT
What is a person?
The necessities of freedom for morality
The moral act
Some theories regarding the morality of actions

III. VOLUNTARIES AND AUTONOMY OF HUMAN ACTS
The voluntary act
Passions and emotions
Happiness and pleasure
Kinds of love
Altruistic importance of commanded acts

IV. GOOD, HAPPINESS AND FINALITY: PRINCIPLES OF THE MORAL ORDER
Goodness as the originator of happiness
Necessity of teleology in ethics
Some conflicting theories regarding the source of morality Happiness: exclusive and inclusive ends

V. NATURAL MORAL LAW
A. Nature and the natural
The notion of the natural law in the history of philosophy
Notion of law
Natural moral law and freedom

B. Right and wrong in society: Notion of moral duty and obligation
Moral conscience

VI. VIRTUE: ITS PLACE IN ETHICS
The notion of virtue in pre-philosophic societies
The concept of virtue at the zenith of earlier western philosophical thought
Kinds of virtues
Necessity of virtue in moral life
The practice of virtue and growth in personality

VII. ETHICAL PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE PRACTICE OF JUSTICE IN RELATION TO LIFE
Right to life
Role of philosophy

VIII. ETHICAL PROBLEMS CONCERNING WORK AND THE RIGHT OF APPROPRIATION OF GOODS
Ownership
The right to work
Philosophical perspective of human work
Perfective dimensions of human work
Necessity of human work

MAJOR TRENDS IN CONTEMPORARY MORAL PHILOSOPHY

IX. METHODS AND MODELS OF MODERN ETHICS
Utilitarian models
Ethics of logical-positivism and analytical philosophy
Ethics based on the metaphysical realism
Vitalism and moral nihilism: Nietzsche

CONCLUSION
Problems of contemporary moral philosophy
Linguistic analysis as ethics
Moral pluralism
Legalism, minimal or obligation ethics
Revindication of virtue ethics