Книга состоит из 15 глав, словаря терминов и предметного указателя, содержит множество илюстраций и примеров програм кода.

Ethics pervades every human society and almost every human life. People deliberate about what they should do on specifi c occasions, about what is worthwhile, about the kinds of lives they should aspire to lead. In subtle ways, their everyday actions presuppose habits of conduct, roles and institutions current in their societies, endorsed sometimes after serious refl ection, often accepted without much thought. With the exception of those affl icted with psychological disruptions that profoundly limit their cognitive capacities or that cut them off from their fellows, we are all embedded in the ethical project. Yet for ordinary people, and for phi los o phers too, the status of our ethical judgments and practices is hard to fathom. What exactly do we mean when we praise someone for a correct decision? How could an evaluation like that be grounded? Bertrand Russell famously described mathematics as a subject in which “. . . we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.”1 The impressive ability of mathematicians to reach agreement on conclusions that endure fosters confi dence in their power to acquire knowledge, despite the mysteries swirling around the content and grounds of their judgments. By contrast, the per sis tence of ethical debate reinforces a sense of unease about the status of ethical practice, often leading those engaged in public controversies to shy away from “value judgments,” as if any hope of reaching consensus were absurd.