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Originally published in 1966, this book neither presents nor advocates any ethical thesis. It is concerned with ethics only in so far as it selects for treatment one of the various distinctions which may be drawn between ethical and non-ethical evaluation. The two kinds of values here contrasted are, on the one hand, those which are derived from the strictly ethical concepts of absolute rightness and wrongness and absolute moral obligation, and, on the other hand, those values connected with the broadly-based concepts of benefit and harm. The main argument of the book is that the two kinds values are essentially distinct, and that the common habit of confusing them conduces to sterile thinking and muddled policies.

The author argues that evaluation in terms of benefit and harm is prior to ethical evaluation in human experience, and that it underlies many supposedly "ethical" judgments. For this and kindred reasons she calls it "basic evaluation". Basic evaluation does not deal in certainties: its propositions are open to critical discussion and to revision, and it is therefore a highly flexible instrument for assessing in universal terms whatever affects human interests; it is, in fact, commonly used in taking practical decisions.

One of the author's main points is that what she calls basic values can be - and commonly are - invoked in the evaluative discussion of ethical values.