The Examined Life

The Examined Life: An Adventure in Moral Philosophy serves as deep dive into the self-consciousness of man, described on the original 1957 cover flaps as follows:

Man, according to Warner Fite, is the only animal that knows he is an animal, and though this very self consciousness, he ceases to be merely an animal. Self-consciousness is the arch-achievement of human nature, and what we call morality is simply the self-conscious living of life. …

For Warner Fite, there is no moral authority that stands above the conscience, … or to put it another way, the sincere, self-questioning individual is an authority although not an omniscient one. His authority springs from his responsibility, from the fact that he wants to "answer for" what he does and what he believes.