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In the preceding sections of this essay, I have outlined a dialectical procedure whereby a doubting mind might be led to the recognition of moral truth. What has been given is the bare plot of a conversation between teacher and student. The student was, at the beginning, a skeptic about moral matters, denying the objectivity of moral knowledge, supposing that all moral judgments were a matter of opinion, entirely relative to the individual or to his cultural location at a given time and place. The teacher, by asking him to explain the undeniable fact that men exercise preference, gradually made him realize that his own criteria for preference — pleasure and quantity of pleasure — had a certain universal validity; and then, as a result of seeing the inadequacy of these criteria, the student began to understand that happiness, rather than pleasure, was the ultimate principle of moral judgments. The crucial steps in the argument were: (1) the distinction between pleasure as one among many objects of desire and pleasure as the satisfaction of any desire; (2) the enumeration of the variety of goods which are objects of human desire; (3) the point that only the totality of goods could completely satisfy desire; (4) the realization that this totality of goods, leaving nothing to be desired, is the end of all our seeking, and that everything else is sought for the sake of its attainment; (5) the conception of happiness as "all good things," a whole constituted by every type of good, the complete good being the end, the incomplete good its parts or constitutive means; (6) the conclusion that the end, as the first principle in the practical order, is the ultimate criterion of preference, for preferor choice is exercised only with respect to means, and hence we should, in every case, prefer whatever is more conducive to the attainment of happiness.

TO MAKE a fresh start, let us ask about the meaning of pleasure as a criterion of preference. Precisely what does the student mean when he says that he prefers A to B because A pleases and B displeases, or because A pleases him more than B?The student may be somewhat bewildered by this question, for he has already told us that such judgments as "A pleases me more than B" are equivalent to saying "I like A more than B." In fact, he confesses, much of the discussion we have had so far has seemed to him to consist in making verbal substitutions of this sort. We started out by admitting that the fact of preference was equivalent to the judgment of "A-better-than-B-for-me" and that in turn became equivalent to two other forms of statement: "A pleases me more than B" and "I like A more than B." What has been gained by saying the same thing over and over again in different words? Pleasure and displeasure, it would seem, do not explain the fact of preference; far from explaining it, the fact of being pleased (or displeased) seems to be identical with the fact of preferring (or not preferring).One thing the student says is false, but one thing is true. The falsity arises from his failure to remember that something was gained by introducing the notion of pleasure into our discussion.

In St. Thomas and the Gentiles I tried to define the obligations of perennial philosophy in the twentieth century. Philosophy may be perennial, but its work changes according to the cultural conditions in which the philosopher lives and thinks. In its Greek beginnings, philosophy arose out of the dialectical efforts of Plato and Aristotle to clarify and order the welter of opinion. They struggled not only with the sophists to divide the line between knowledge and opinion; but they also moved in the realm of opinion to distinguish the true from the false; and, in their patient consideration of pre-Socratic thought, they both tried, though differently, to convert right opinion into knowledge by making it evident to reason. Although the result of their work was the establishment of philosophy as a body of knowledge, founded on principles and developed by demonstrations, we must not forget that, in their day, the mode of their work was primarily dialectical. In saying this I do not overlook the demonstrative or scientific achievements of Plato and Aristotle; but those must be regarded a secondary, for the first work of pioneers is to stake out the land, to clear away the brush, to prepare the soil, and to dig for firm foundations Only thereafter can a city be planned, buildings raised, and interiors decorated The Platonic dialogues certainly reveal an intellectual pioneer at work; but no less do the so-called "scientific" works of Aristotle, for they are primarily records of exploration and discovery. Rather than orderly expositions of accomplished knowledge, they are, not only in their opening chapters but throughout, dialectical engagement with adversaries, wrestlings with the half-truths of error and opinion in order to set the whole truth forth.

Intro -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- PART ONE - THE IDEA OF THE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION -- 1 WHY A CAPITALIST MANIFESTO? -- 2. ECONOMIC FREEDOM: PROPERTY AND LEISURE -- 3. SOME PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED -- 4. ELEMENTARY ECONOMICS -- 5. ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS -- 6 ECONOMIC HISTORY: THE CLASSIFICATION OF ECONOMIES -- 7 THE ECONOMIC FUTURE -- 8 THE THEORY OF CAPITALISM -- PART TWO - THE PROGRAM OF THE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION -- 9 SUMMARY OF THE PRACTICAL PROGRAM -- 10 THE POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR THE REFORMS PROPOSED -- 11 MEASURES AIMED AT BROADENING THE OWNERSHIP OF EXISTING ENTERPRISES -- 12 THE MODERN CORPORATION AND THE CAPITALIST REVOLUTION -- 13 MEASURES AIMED AT DETERRING AN EXCESSIVE OWNERSHIP OF CAPITAL BY INDIVIDUAL HOUSEHOLDS -- 14 MEASURES AIMED AT DIRECTLY STIMULATING AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF NEW CAPITALISTS -- 15 CONCLUDING SUMMARY -- APPENDIX: THE CONCEALMENT OF THE DECLINING PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOR IN OUR PRESENT ECONOMY -- REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER.