"Argues that the path to the good life does not consist in working toward some abstract concept of the good, but rather by ameliorating the problems of the practices and institutions that make up our practical life"--.

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on In-Text Citations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. What’s the Good of Goodness?
  • Plato’s Doubts
  • James’s Doubts
  • The Tragic Sense of Life
  • Problem-Based Ethics
• Chapter 2. Pragmatism and the Roots of Problem-Based Ethics
  • The Pragmatic Maxim: Theory to Practice
  • Truth and Goodness Reconceived
  • Communities of Inquiry
  • Democracy as a Community of Inquiry
  • Scientific Ethics and Experiments of Living
  • Meliorism: Convergence, Growth, Improvement, Progress
• Chapter 3. Practical Life
  • Practices
  • Practices as Solutions to Problems
  • What Is a Problem?
  • The Normative Character of Practices
  • The Normative Governance of Practices
• Chapter 4. Practical Reasoning
  • The Desire-Belief Model of Moral Motivation
  • From Practical Reasoning to Practical Knowledge
  • Problems as Moral Guidance
• Chapter 5. Normative Science
  • The General and the Particular in Practical Knowledge
  • Know-How and Know-That
  • Practical Hypotheses
  • Normative Naturalism
  • The Empirical Warrant for Prudential Norms
  • The Empirical Warrant for Good Ends and Righteous Means
• Chapter 6. Communities of Inquiry
  • The Ends and Means of Inquiry
  • The Problem of Epistemarchy
  • Problems and the Governance of Practices
• Chapter 7. Change for the Better
  • Progress as Preference for Ways of Life
  • The Cumulative Theory of Progress
  • Progress as a Function of Problem-Solving Effectiveness
  • Moral Progress
  • Has There Been Progress?
  • Generalizing Problem-Solving Effectiveness
• Conclusion
• References
• Index