From Library Journal

This book has three parts: --a 16-page summary of how it came to be written and of its presuppositions and objectives; --a 106-page essay on morality proposing that recognizing what ought to be desired enables all normal people to attain a good life, provided that luck does not prevent it; --and two appendixes of about 70 pages of relevant material. 

Adler regards happiness, not as an experienceable state, but as a well-lived life that attains everything that is really good. Accordingly, during our lifetime, we should distinguish real from apparent goods and desire them appropriately, i.e., neither too much nor too little. After discussing what he believes are specific right and wrong desires, he criticizes other moral philosophers such as Plato, Hume, Mill, and Dewey. 

Adler intends the book for the lay reader. It is often simplistic and sometimes dogmatic, but its clear exposition and concrete examples should help the reader separate the good from the bad in it.

--Robert Hoffman, York Coll., CUNY. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Adler, author of _The Dialectic of Morals_ and America's philosopher for everyman, presents a thorough study of morality in the modern age, examining "real" and "apparent" good (defined respectively as needs and wants) and "right" versus "wrong" desires. Stating his positions clearly for the general reader, he reaffirms his Aristotelian roots by defining moral virtue as "the habit of right desire." Excessive desires, for example, gluttony and lust, mistake means for ends; these, like the desire for fame or power, cannot in themselves produce happiness; only by acting out higher moral values that contribute to the total good can one really be happy. 

Adler, chairman of Encyclopaedia Britannica 's editorial board, is comfortable with Western philosophy from Plato to Kant and gifted at making his arguments understandable. His treatise will reward readers weary of 20th-century materialism.

Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

America's most prolific philosopher and encyclopedist (Haves Without Have-Nots, 1991; Truth in Religion, 1990; etc.) tries to work out a moral philosophy for the modern age, largely based on Aristotle, but somehow loses his readership along the way. The real genius of Adler has always been his ability to state the obvious in the most startling manner imaginable: To several generations of students reared on skepticism or structuralism, his affirmations of objective reality and verifiable truth have come as revelations. The strength of his position lies not so much in its originality--for it is not original--as in its confidence, the chutzpah with which it flaunts those Thomistic and Aristotelian categories that most Western philosophers imagine to have been buried for good during the Enlightenment. Here, Adler attempts to apply the principles of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics to the contemporary world. The Aristotelian hierarchy is neatly laid out for us--the distinction between the summum bonum and totum bonum, the contrast between ends and means, the obligations that individuals and societies owe toward justice and love--but it is hard to see how Adler has refined Aristotle's position (apart from "democratizing'' it) or how he has applied it in any way that would not have been suggested just as readily by a simple reading of Aristotle himself. Neither original nor profound, Adler's work here has the musty smell of leftover notes for an already published book. For those dismayed by modern philosophy, this could provide a nudge in another direction, but only insofar as it points to someone else. Read Aristotle instead. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Mortimer Jerome Adler (Dec 28, 1902 - June 28, 2001) 

was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo. He worked for Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica, and Adler's own Institute for Philosophical Research. Adler was married twice and had four children