If you buy and read only one book this year, make it this one. Then, after you read and reread this book, buy and read, if you have not done so already, it's prequel, Cosmopolis. When you've done that you may find yourself wondering one thing and worrying about another (at least, where medical ethics is concerned). Why do we hear so little about Montaigne and Wittgenstein? And why do we bother so much with Descartes and his followers? Did philosophy take a wrong turn somewhere? Has ethics gone in one direction, philosophy in another? Did we moderns zig, when we could, and should, have zagged?