Toward a unified theory of morality

Part One of Reasons and Persons discusses a wide variety of topics, and a first-time reader could be pardoned for not seeing the topics as unified in any clear way. This part of the book can seem, instead, like a tour de force of disconnected insights: brilliant, but haphazard. The closing pages of Part One reveal, however, that nearly all of it can be seen as articulating and arguing for a particular theory of morality. In retrospect, this gives Part One a coherent agenda that, for most readers, is not initially evident.