Acknowledgments

Although nothing that follows has appeared in print in its present form, some preliminary work on themes in the book has been read to various audiences and in a few cases published in essay form. In this connection I am indebted to the following sponsors of colloquia and symposia: the Department of Economics, University of Notre Dame; the Departments of Philosophy, Rice University and Texas A & M University; the Jones Graduate School of Administration, Rice University; the School of Management, Brigham Young University; the Fullerton Club and the Washington (D.C.) Philosophical Society. Related essays appear in Peter A. French, Theodore E. Uehling, Jr., and Howard K. Wettstein, eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 8: Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988); N. Dale Wright, ed., Papers on the Ethics of Administration (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988); Konstantin Kolenda, ed., Organizations and Ethical Individualism (New York: Praeger, 1988); Roger Skurski, ed., New Directions in Economic Justice (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983); and Maurice Wohlgelernter, ed., History, Religion, and Spiritual Democracy: Essays in Honor of Joseph L. Blau (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980).

One of the priceless benefits of academic life is the counsel and criticism that is generously forthcoming from dedicated colleagues. This book and I have gained immeasurably from conversation and correspondence with John H. Barcroft, Dayle M. Bethel, Anne Carson, Gilbert Harman, David Kirk Hart, John Kekes, Konstantin Kolenda,

Tibor Machan, George Mavrodes, Michael Oakeshott, Noel O' Sullivan, William G. Scott, Ellen K. Suckiel, Richard Taylor, Sanford G. Thatcher, Alan S. Waterman, and Stephen Worland. In several cases I am grateful as well for sustaining friendship.

The book has profited from the highly capable editorial attentions of Scott Mahler, editor in the humanities and fine arts, University of California Press, to whom I extend thanks.

My deepest debt, philosophical and personal, is to my wife, Mary Kille Norton, herself a philosopher. To the question that is sometimes put to us, "Do you talk philosophy at the dinner table?," our answer must be, Nostra culpa.