Maria Pia Lara is a professor of ethics and political philosophy at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico City. The work of Lara has had wide international repercussions, so that several of his books, including this one, have been published in English, plus he has published numerous papers and essays in journals and anthologies in the United States and Europe. His work can be seen as part of the stream of philosophical thought known as critical theory, whose origins are located in the Frankfurt School. Among his recent books are Moral Textures (1998) and Rethinking Evil (2001) published in the United States and England simultaneously and have been translated into Italian