calls utilitarian ideals are objectives to increase the amount of good in the world. For example, the objective of giving poor children extra presents for Christmas. Categorizing Gert's moral theory Although his moral system shares similarities to deontology, rule utilitarianism, and contractarianism, Gert does not ally himself with any of those positions. He writes, "I think that my view is best characterized as a natural law theory . . . in the tradition of Hobbes". He also writes, "my view has been characterized as Kant with consequences, as Mill with publicity, and as Ross with a theory." However, when Walter Sinnott-Armstrong once labeled the theory as "a sophisticated form of negative objective universal public rule consequentialism", Gert replied that "there may be no point in denying that I am some form of consequentialist". Bibliography The Morality Monographs The Moral Rules: A New Rational Foundation for Morality, Harper and Row, 1970. Morality: A New Justification of the Moral Rules, Oxford University Press, 1988. Morality: Its Nature and Justification, Oxford University Press, 1998. Morality: Its Nature and Justification, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, 2005. Common Morality: Deciding What to Do, Oxford University Press, 2004. Bioethics: A Systematic Approach, 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 2006 Hobbes: Prince of Peace, Polity Press, 2010. References Further reading Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Audi, eds., Rationality, Rules, and Ideals: Critial Essays on Bernard Gert's Moral Theory, Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. External links Gert's homepage at Dartmouth Gert, B. (1989). Morality versus Slogans Paper Presented to the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society, 3(2), Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan Gert, B. (2005). The Definition of Morality, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) 1934 births Cornell University alumni Dartmouth College faculty Hastings Center Fellows 2011 deaths American philosophers