So with over 600 votes, here were the 'top ten':
| 1. Mill, Utilitarianism (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices) |
| 2. Rawls, A Theory of Justice loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 247–229 |
| 3. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 312–149, loses to Rawls, A Theory of Justice by 313–146 |
| 4. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 317–165, loses to Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics by 221–210 |
| 5. Moore, Principia Ethica loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 364–114, loses to Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality by 232–211 |
| 6. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 342–129, loses to Moore, Principia Ethica by 228–205 |
| 7. Marx, The 1844 Manuscripts loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 356–111, loses to Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil by 209–176 |
| 8. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 373–77, loses to Marx, The 1844 Manuscripts by 213–178 |
| 9. Hegel, Philosophy of Right loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 347–105, loses to Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy by 187–185 |
| 10. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong loses to Mill, Utilitarianism by 378–60, loses to Hegel, Philosophy of Right by 194–169 |
Runners-up for the top ten were Ross's The Right and the Good and Williams's collection Moral Luck. The clearest omission from the survey was Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good, as several correspondents pointed out.
My own views: I was surprised that Mill and Rawls beat Sidgwick, and I was particularly surprised by the weak showing of Stevenson's Ethics and Language, which, while not popular with practitioners of normative ethics, is surely one of the classics of twentieth-century Anglophone philosophy.
Thoughts from readers on the results? Signed comments will be strongly preferred.
