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After decades in the wilderness of linguistic abstraction, moral philosophy has at last come home.  Through most of the past century, moral philosophers analyzed language in the effort to construct linguistic proofs, or instead to disprove, moral assertions as such.  Impossible demands for linguistic proof from analytic thinkers forced their opponents to retreat to a skepticism that defended, so far as possible, nothing.  This skepticism may now be falling from favor, as its seeming humility about “foundations” led to practical conclusions that were anything but humble.  Both analysts and pragmatists were forced to relearn the timeless lesson, as memorably put by Northrup Frye, that grammatically and logically there is no difference between lions and unicorns, or between reason and rationalization.  If there are criteria of difference, they must be sought outside the realm of words, in the facts of our experience.  In recent decades, moral philosophy has been compelled to return to its ancient and early modern roots.  It is again concerned, not merely with words, but with substantive moral questions of freedom, of duty, and of justice.  Individual rights, and the history and epistemology of natural rights in particular, are prominent among the current concerns of both moral and political philosophers. . . .