is irrational to fail to be averse to harm. Everyone avoids harm insofar as they are rational. Rationality does require that we avoid harming ourselves without an adequate reason. A rational person would not cause his own pain unless it were for an adequate reason, for example, to cure a disease. Even a masochist causes pain in himself for a reason, presumably for pleasure. This helps show that no rational being seeks to harm himself for its own sake. The sort of adequate reason in question involves avoiding any of the five basic evils or obtaining of any of the following basic goods: pleasure freedom ability consciousness According to Gert, acting rationally does not always require acting morally. For example, it is not irrational to set a trap for someone who is wearing an Armani suit so that they fall into a swimming pool in front of a video camera, since the pleasure one can get out of watching the video constitutes an adequate reason for harming the other person. It would also be rational for a sadist to torture other people for fun provided the sadist could get away with it. There are five sorts of irrational desire according to Gert: seeking death, pain, disability, loss of freedom, or loss of pleasure. We arrive at moral rules by extending these objects of irrational desire to others. Rationality, alone, does not require this. However, if we adopt the principle of impartiality, whereby we apply the rules without regard to who gains or loses, we extend these prohibitions to others. This results in rules such as do not kill, do not cause pain, do not disable, and so forth. Why be moral? On Gert's view, there are several reasons to act morally. The primary one is i) that if you don't, someone else will be harmed. While it is rational not to care about others, the fact that they will be harmed is enough of a reason itself. Other reasons to act morally include ii) that acting immorally will corrupt one's own character, and iii) that some forms of immoral action can make the world inhospitable to oneself, such that in some cases it is irrational to act immorally toward others. Normative ethics Ten moral rules In his book Common Morality: Deciding What to Do, Gert proposes ten moral rules which, if followed, create a moral system. The rules are as