This volume contains C. D. Broad's Cambridge lectures on Ethics. Broad
gave a course of lectures on the subject, intended primarily for Part I
of the Moral Sciences Tripos, every academic year from 1933 - 34 up to
and in- cluding 1952 - 53 (except that he did not lecture on Ethics in
1935 - 36). The course however was frequently revised, and the present
version is es- sentially that which he gave in 1952 - 53. Broad always
wrote out his lectures fully beforehand, and the manuscript on Ethics,
although full of revisions, is in a reasonably good state. But his
handwriting is small and close and in places difficult to decipher. I
therefore fear that some words may have been misread. There was an
additional complication. In the summer of 1953 Broad revised and
enlarged two sections of the course, namely the section on "Moore's
theory" and that on "Naturalistic theories" (both sections occur in
Chapter 4). The revised version of the section on Moore is undoubtedly
superior to the earlier version, and I have therefore included it. But
in my opinion this is not true of the new version of the section on
naturalistic theories: although more comprehensive than the earlier
version, it is not only repetitive in itself, but also repeats,
sometimes almost verbatim, passages which occur elsewhere in the
lectures. In brief, the new version is not fully integrated with the
rest of the course.
