Introduction
The central place of morality in our lives is threatened on the one hand by the pursuit of happiness and on the other by a lack of freedom according to which we can be held morally responsible. If a person’s pursuit of happiness is promoted by doing what is morally wrong on occasion then it is unclear why he should act against his happiness by avoiding wrong doing. What is the motivation for a person to go against his own happiness? Even if it can be shown that there is good reason to avoid wrong doing morality would have no significant place in our lives if we lack the freedom to avoid wrong doing. Morality would be an inert ideal capable perhaps of stirring feelings of regret when it is violated but otherwise incapable of guiding our lives and governing our relation to one another.
One could try to settle the issue of the place of morality in our lives directly by considering in its own right what value morality has. Unless however morality is the ground or source of all value this would leave it open that what else has value has a claim against morality. Without settling what is at the bottom of anything’s having value no consideration of values that morality realizes will secure its predominant place over all other values. But now following Aristotle it is happiness that is our final good and our final end. Happiness, whatever else, lies at the bottom of all that we value for our lives and all that we aim for in our lives. Just as truth is the final good and the final end of our theoretical endeavors, happiness is the final good and the final end of our practical endeavors. The surest way then to secure the place of morality in our lives is to find a conception of happiness by which it is the ground of all value and then show that morality is essential to happiness so conceived. The task of Part One is to set out a conception of what it is to be happy that in this way secures the place of morality in our lives...

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