Title Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: The Project of an Existential Theory of Personhood -- Part I: The Idea of Willing as Projective Motivation -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- 1. The Heroic Will -- 2. The Existential Theory of Striving Will as Projective Motivation -- 3. An Outline of the Main Argument -- 4. The Limits of This Analysis -- 5. A Reader's Guide: Ways through the Text -- Chapter 2: The Heroic Will in Eastern and Western Perspectives -- 1. The Paradigmatically ''Eastern'' Attitude toward Will and Willfulness -- 2. The Paradigmatically ''Western'' Attitude -- 3. The Continental Inversion -- 4. Contemporary Moral Psychology as Corrective -- Chapter 3: From Action Theory to Projective Motivation -- 1. The Decline of the Will -- 2. Kane's Three Senses of ''Will'' -- 3. Four Basic Concepts of the Will -- Chapter 4: The Erosiac Structure of Desire in Plato and Aristotle -- 1. Toward an Existential Theory of Motivation -- 2. Plato's Erosiac Model of Motivation -- 3. From Plato's Middle Soul to Aristotle's Intellectual Appetite -- Chapter 5: Aristotelian Desires and the Problems of Egoism -- 1. Aristotle and the Typology of Erosiac Desire -- 2. Formal and Material Egoism -- Part II: The Existential Critique of Eudaimonism -- Chapter 6: Psychological Eudaimonism: A Reading of Aristotle -- Introduction -- 1. The Highest or Complete Good in Aristotle's Eudaimonism -- 2. Excursus: Maximal Inclusivism, Virtue Inclusivism, and Dominant-End Models -- 3. The A-Eudaimonist System: An Idealized Aristotelian Model -- Chapter 7: The Paradox of Eudaimonism: An Existential Critique -- Introduction -- 1. Elements of the Pure Motive of Virtue -- 2. Annas and Kraut on the Motive of Virtue in Friendship -- 3. The Paradox of Eudaimonism: Desiring Eudaimonia as a By-Product of Virtue.

4. Why the Paradox Cannot Be Solved by Denying that Eudaimonia Motivates Virtue -- 6. Why the Paradox Cannot Be Solved by Second-Order Desire Subsuming First-Order Desire -- 7. The Existential Solution: Pure Motives as Projects of the Striving Will -- 8. The Paradox as One of Several Related Objections to Eudaimonism -- Chapter 8: Contemporary Solutions to the Paradox and Their Problems -- Introduction -- 1. Cooper's Solution: Virtuous Motivation as a Constitutive Means to Eudaimonia -- 2. Gottlieb's Solution: Pushing Desire for Eudaimonia into the ''Background'' -- 3. Indirect Eudaimonism: A Possible Parfitian Solution? -- 4. Sherman on Friendship -- 5. Practices, Virtue, and External Eudaimonism -- 6. Watson's Pure Aretaic Naturalism -- 7. Social Holist Eudaimonism as a Radical Solution? -- 8. Conclusion: Toward a Rejection of the Transmission Principle -- Part III: Case Studies for the Existential Will as Projective Motivation -- Chapter 9: Divine and Human Creativity: From Plato to Levinas -- 1. Thick and Thin Concepts of Motivation -- 2. The Neoplatonic Projective Model of Divine Agape -- 3. Arendt on Creative Work -- 4. Levinas on Superabundant Will and Volitional Generosity -- 5. The General Structure of Projective Motivation -- Chapter 10: Radical Evil and Projective Strength of Will -- 1. Why Eudaimonism Misses Virtue and Vice in Their Most Radical Forms -- 2. Toward an Existential Theory of Radical Evil: Six Forms of Volitional Hatred -- 3. Aquinas and Kierkegaard on Evil: A Response to MacIntyre -- 4. Projective Strength of Will versus Enkrateia -- Chapter 11: Scotus and Kant: The Moral Will and Its Limits -- 1. The Medieval Shift away from Eudaimonism: Scotus and the Moral Will -- 2. Kant and the Projective Motive of Duty -- 3. Projective Willing and Libertarian Freedom -- Conclusion.

Chapter 12: Existential Psychology and Intrinsic Motivation: Deci, Maslow, and Frankl -- 1. Twentieth-Century Psychological Theories of Motivation -- 2. From Drive Theories to Intrinsic Motivation -- 3. An Existential Reinterpretation of Intrinsic Motivation -- 4. Maslow's Eudaimonism -- 5. Frankl's Existential Will to Meaning -- 6. How Caring Benefits the Agent: Frankfurt on Means and Ends -- 7. Self-Esteem as By-Product -- 8. Willed Carelessness: Emily Fox Gordon's Case -- 9. Willed Inferiority: Sartre -- Conclusion -- Chapter 13: Caring, Aretaic Commitment, and Existential Resolve -- Review -- 1. Frankfurtian Care as Projective Motivation -- 2. Aretaic Commitment and Backward-Looking Considerations -- Chapter 14: An Existential Objectivist Account of What Is Worth Caring About -- Introduction -- 1. Existential Objectivism -- 2. Caring and the Good in Recent Political Philosophy -- 3. Three Initial Reasons for Objectivism -- 4. Frankfurtian Arguments for Subjectivism and Objectivist Rebuttals -- 5. The Reciprocal Relation between Value Insight and Volitional Resolve -- 6. Toward a Taxonomy of Significant Grounds for Caring -- Conclusion: The Danger of Willfulness Revisited -- Notes -- Glossary of Definitions, Technical Terms, and Abbreviations -- Bibliography -- Index.