Dear Prudence

The aim of this tightly argued book is to defend and explicate the view that prudential discourse, a central part of human life, is normative. This is frequently taken for granted in moral philosophy but rarely explained or defended. * S. A. Mason, CHOICE *
Guy Fletcher has written an excellent and much needed book about prudence—lucid, thoughtful, and, to my mind, persuasive. He is well acquainted with all the contemporary literature on his topic, and his treatment of the contributions of others is fair, sympathetic, and helpful. While the discussion becomes increasingly subtle and complex, Fletcher remains admirably clear throughout. * David McNaughton, The Philosophical Quarterly *
Those interested in theoretical issues concerning prudence or in meta-normativity outside the confines of morality would be well served by studying this book ... Fletcher is utterly successful in his primary goal of showing the importance of exploring the meta-normativity of prudence. * Christopher Frugé, Utilitas *
Guy Fletcher's Dear Prudence: The Nature and Normativity of Prudential Discourse...covers such topics as the nature of prudential judgment, the semantics of prudential language, the normativity of prudence, its implications for traditional meta-ethical views such as realism, anti-realism and error theory, and much else besides. * James L D Brown, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Frankfurt, Germany, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, Analysis *
Dear Prudence is written with an assuredly light-footed, Lewis-like quality: it never gets bogged down and encourages the reader to do much of the important thinking off the page. * Neil Sinclair, Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom *
I think that it is a very impressive piece of work. It is fair to say that all of the topics addressed are significant and that Fletcher has new and interesting things to say about all of the topics he addresses. Anyone working in either metaethics or prudential value theory should read this book. * Jennifer Hawkins, Ethics *