Perfectionism

Perfectionism is one of the great moralities of the Western tradition. It holds that certain states of humans such as knowledge, achievement and friendship are good apart from any pleasure they may bring, and that the morally right act is always the one that most promotes these states. Defined more narrowly, perfectionism holds that the human good consists at bottom in the development of properties fundamental to human nature. This book gives an account of perfectionism in the narrower sense, from its most general ideas about human nature to specific claims about intrinsic values and political practice, using the techniques of contemporary moral theory.