The book covers all of Camus's significant writings and includes thorough expositions of The Myth of Sisyphus, The Stranger, The Fall, The Plague, and The Rebel. A discussion of the metaphysical and practical connotations of Camus's celebrated concept of the Absurd lays the foundation for a discussion of the later works, which are considered in the context of Camus's basic ethical orientation. This, it is contended, harks back (and, with its recent resurgence, forward) to a virtue ethics of sorts. It is argued that Camus's literary characters are purified phenomenological portraits that reflect the existential temptations of an overwhelmed modern consciousness, and the ethico-political works reflect the efforts of a morally committed consciousness to come to grips with a modern world unable to make good the moral imperative. In the end, it is argued, Camus offers a phenomenological ethics, which is all that is left of virtue ethics when social life has broken down.
