Abstract: Moral Animals offers a set of anthropological and conceptual foundations for moral theory before turning to the problem of overdemandingness or exigency as it afflicts contemporary egalitarianism. The first half of the book is devoted to a discussion of the bearing of evolutionary theory on ethics and metaethics. After arguing that morality presupposes and compensates for asymmetrical relations of advantage and social power, the author addresses the problem of objectivity, showing in what sense moral judgements are susceptible of confirmation, whether or not moral realism is tenable. In the second half of the book, a number of vexed issues in the theory of social justice, including the problems of affluence and the subordination of women, are examined. Taking the fair division of the co-operative surplus as the basic problem of distributive justice, the author shows how most co-operation between human beings fails to allocate goods to individuals and groups according to appropriate standards of need and merit. It is shown that neither the special nature of the first-person standpoint, nor the importance of non-moral projects and ambitions, nor the different needs, social understandings, competencies, and emotions of different persons and groups pose a serious challenge to the view that greater global equality in levels of well-being, as well as greater equality between the sexes, is not only morally desirable but morally required.

Keywords: affluence, co-operation, distributive justice, equality, evolutionary theory, exigency, merit, moral realism, morality, women