It is not only in our dark hours that scepticism relativism hypocrisy & nihilism dog ethics Whether it is a matter of giving to charity or sticking to duty or insisting on our rights we can be confused or be paralysed by the fear that our principles are groundless Many are afraid that in a Godless world science has unmasked us as creatures fated by our genes to be selfish & tribalistic or competitive & aggressive Simon Blackburn author of the best-selling Think structures this short introduction around these & other threats to ethics Confronting seven different objections to our self-image as moral well-behaved creatures he charts a course through the philosophical quicksands that often engulf us Then turning to problems of life & death he shows how we should think about the meaning of life & how we should mistrust the sound-bite sized absolutes that often dominate moral debates Finally he offers a critical tour of the ways the philosophical tradition has tried to provide foundations for ethics from Plato & Aristotle through to contemporary debates