Earlier versions of this paper have been delivered at Fordham University, Boston College, Loyola College of Maryland, and the Husserl Circle. I am grateful to all those present at these sessions whose comments have contributed to the development of the paper. I am also grateful to Professor Robert Sokolowski of the Catholic University of America for comments on an earlier written draft, and I am especially grateful to Professor Steven Crowell of Rice University with whom I have had numerous conversations and written exchanges about this and related topics in moral phenomenology