Alan Gewirth's "Reason and Morality," in which he set forth the Principle of Generic Consistency, is a major work of modern ethical theory that, though much debated and highly respected, has yet to gain full acceptance. Deryck Beyleveld contends that this resistance stems from misunderstanding of the method and logical operations of Gewirth's central argument. In this book Beyleveld seeks to remedy this deficiency. His rigorous reconstruction of Gewirth's argument gives its various parts their most compelling formulation and clarifies its essential logical structure.
Beyleveld then...

"Most modern philosophers attempt to solve the problem of morality from within the epistemological assumptions that define the dominant cultural perspective of our age. Alan Gewirth's "Reason and Morality" is a major work in this ongoing enterprise. Gewirth develops, with patience and skill, what he calls a 'modified naturalism' in which morality is derived by logic alone from the concept of action. . . . I think that the publication of "Reason and Morality" is a major event in the history of moral philosophy. It develops with great power a new and exciting position in ethical naturalism. No...

Alan Gewirth extends his fundamental principle of equal and universal human rights, the Principle of Generic Consistency, into the arena of social and political philosophy, exploring its implications for both social and economic rights. He argues that the ethical requirements logically imposed on individual action hold equally for the supportive state as a community of rights, whose chief function is to maintain and promote the universal human rights to freedom and well-being. Such social afflictions as unemployment, homelessness, and poverty are basic violations of these rights, which the...