Ian Little offers a new defence of utilitarianism as a basis for assessing the role of the State. Lucidly and elegantly he explains how the three disciplines of philosophy, economics, and politics can be integrated to provide guidance on issues of public policy. Anyone interested in public...

Preface and acknowledgments -- Ethics and economics -- Introduction -- Eudaimonia : the ancients and the good life -- The impact of the ancients -- Conceptions of rationality: thin, thick, and ancient -- Ethics and public policy -- The problem of pathological consumption -- Economics, ethics and...