In contrast to most texts of managerial ethics, which either offer generalised checklists or focus upon organisational systems, Loughlin sees the problem in personal terms. The ideal moral manager is someone with a distinctively reflective disposition and developed philosophical skills. And the ethical practice of management should not be simple obedience to procedure, but requires understanding and analysing managerial pre-suppositions.

Many 'ethical dilemmas' of conventional health management texts, such as problems of rationing scarce services, can only properly be considered in a broader spectrum than the organisation. Loughlin argues that the moral manager needs to be able to analyse the context that leads to these dilemmas. Otherwise, ethicists will merely tend to generate procedures for justifying arbitrary decisions or displacing responsibility.

He also discusses the need to dissect the moral nature of the organisations within which managers operate, and to pose the question of whether a given organisation is one which encourages - or suppresses - moral managerial practices.

In sum, this is a powerful and radical book, which argues for the recognition of managers as autonomous moral agents, and the social responsibilities that this entails.

Loughlin's ultimate goal is a 'philosophical' populace, trained in intellectual and moral 'self-defence'. Ethics, management and mythology is explicitly written for such an audience.