"When first published in 1959, Thought and Action represented a departure from conventions in philosophical thought. At a time when the linguistic turn had been decisively taken, and when it had been established that 'ought' could never is 'is,' Hampshire proposed that philosophers could not consider the theory of the ind separately from ethics without the risk of falsifying both. Today's reader of Thought and Action will be struck by its articulation of contemporary themes. Twenty years ago, concerns relating to 'character,' to the Greek conception of the ends of human action, to the virtues, or to the meaning of a 'good man,' were not common topics in philosophical discourse - as they are today, and as is Hampshire's prescient recommendation that we be sensitive to the changing meaning of words such as 'good' and 'virtue' - that is, the continuities and discontinuities that inform the history of morality"--Unedited summary from book cover.