"The reasons why man needs a moral code will tell you that the purpose of morality is to define man's proper values and interests, that concern with his own interests is the essence of a moral existence, and that man must be the beneficiary of his own moral actions." Introduction, p. ix

"The avowed mystics held the arbitrary, unaccountable 'will of God' as the standard of the good and as the validation of their ethics. The neo-mystics replaced it with 'the good of society,' thus collapsing into the circularity of a definition such as 'the standard of the good is that which is good for society.' This meant, in logic—and, today, in worldwide practice—that 'society' stands above any principles of ethics, since it is the source, standard and criterion of ethics, since 'the good' is whatever it wills, whatever it happens to...