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APA NewslettersSpring 2001
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Hugh
LaFollette, editor, The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory Reviewed by Robert B. Louden University of Southern Maine. |
This
anthology is the most recent addition to the Blackwell Philosophy
Guides (series editor: Steven M. Cahn), each volume of which focuses
on a different subfield of philosophy. The Ethical Theory volume
consists of twenty-one commissioned essays, to which the editor
has added a short Introduction and Index. The essays are divided
into two parts ("Meta-Ethics" and "Normative Ethics"),
and each part is further subdivided. Although it is not possible
to assess each individual contribution in a short review, readers
of this Newsletter might like to at least see what the essay title/author
list looks like, as well as how the editor divides up the two parts
of ethical theory:
I: Meta-Ethics
The status of ethics
1)
"Moral Realism," Michael Smith;
2) "Relativism," Simon Blackburn.
What grounds ethical claims?
3) "Divine Command Theory,"Phillip L. Quinn;
4) "Naturalism," James Rachels;
5) "Moral Intuition," Jeff McMahan.
Against ethical theory
6) "The End of Ethics," John D. Caputo;
Psychology and ethics
7) "Psychological Egoism," Elliott Sober;
8) "Moral Psychology," Laurence Thomas.
II: Normative Ethics
Consequentialism
9) "Act-Utilitarianism," R. G. Frey;
10) "Rule-Consequentialism," Brad Hooker;
Deontology
11) "Nonconsequentialism," F. M. Kamm;
12) "Kantianism," Thomas E. Hill, Jr.;
13) "Contractarianism," Geoffrey Sayre-McCord;
14) "Intuitionism," David McNaughton;
15) "Rights," L. W. Sumner;
16) "Libertarianism," Jan Narveson.
Alternative views
17) "Virtue Ethics," Michael Slote;
18) "Feminist Ethics," Alison M. Jaggar;
19) "Continental Ethics," William R. Schroeder;
20) "Pragmatic Ethics," Hugh LaFollette;
21) "Toward Reconciliation in Ethics," James P. Sterba.
Most of the contributors are recognized experts on the topics they
have chosen to write about, and overall I judge the quality of the
contributions to be uniformly high. But if we are looking at this
collection with an eye towards its suitability for classroom use,
the main problem is that some of the essays (e. g., those by Smith,
Quinn, Sober, Frey, and Hooker) will prove extremely difficult for
undergraduates. In some cases the authors are responding to issues
developed in contemporary literature with which most undergraduates
are not yet familiar; in others they are working at a level of technicality
that is not likely to excite undergraduate readers. And in a few
cases, both traits are evident.
This anthology would work best as an accompanying text for a beginning-level
graduate seminar on Contemporary Ethical Theory in which the instructor's
aim is to convey a solid sense of the full terrain of contemporary
ethical theory-in all of its bewildering and occasionally conflicting
variety. But many other classroom-and-instruction-related applications
also come to mind. The collection would be a great resource tool
for advanced undergraduate as well as beginning graduate philosophy
students who already have some background and interest in ethical
theory and who wish to check out the present options more systematically,
find their own bearings, etc. As a possible aid to independent research
efforts, nearly all of the essays conclude with a list of references.
However, in some cases (e. g., Blackburn-his is the one contribution
that doesn't follow this "References" format, concluding
instead with a brief "Notes" section-Hill, and Narveson)
the references to relevant secondary literature are a bit skimpy.
Philosophy faculty with areas of specialization and concentration
other than ethics who find themselves developing new research interests
in ethical theory (and/or who are asked to teach a course in this
area) would definitely benefit from this text. Similarly, academics
from other disciplines who find themselves asking philosophical
questions about ethics and who want to see what contemporary philosophers
have to say about such matters also would be well served. Finally,
practicing ethical theorists who desire to gain a better understanding
of what competing theorists in other corners of their own field
are saying and where they are coming from would also benefit. (For
example, Schroeder's essay is highly recommended to Analytic ethical
theorists who want to get a better sense of Continental ethics.)
As is the case with most commissioned anthologies, the individual
contributors appear to have written their own essays without knowing
what their co-contributors were up to. One result is that several
contributors occasionally discuss the same topics, albeit in different
ways and from different perspectives. For example, strong anti-theory
sentiments as well as more moderate skepticism concerning high-level
theory aspirations in the field of ethics are evident not only in
Caputo's contribution (as the Contents page would lead readers to
expect), but also in those by Slote, LaFollette, Jaggar, and McNaughton.
(Surprisingly, however, "anti-theory" doesn't even warrant
an index entry.) And versions of an ethics of care are either defended
or criticized not only by Jaggar but also by Caputo and Slote. ("Care
ethic" does appear in the Index, but the only page reference
is to a single remark made in the editor's Introduction.) Similarly,
some authors use different terminology to discuss seemingly identical
topics. For example, much of LaFollette's contribution is on the
role of habit in ethics, but his discussion of habit gives no indication
that it has any connection to Slote's discussion of virtue ethics.
Such overlappings from different perspectives are in fact often
fruitful in philosophical discussion, but readers would be better
served by a more detailed Index that cued them in to where the overlappings
were happening within the various contributions.
The one quasi-exception to the above generalization about contributors
not knowing what each other is up to is Sterba. But the title of
his essay-"Toward Reconciliation in Ethics"-seems to promise
a bit more than it delivers. He does not attempt to engage in dialogue
with the other twenty contributors but only with select aspects
of the positions of three of them (Narveson, Hooker, Jaggar). And
here his opening effort to convince libertarians that they are in
fact (albeit unbeknownst to themselves) logically committed to a
positive right to help others in need is marred by the fact that
several of his page references to Narveson's text are incorrect,
making it difficult for readers to follow the debate (p. 440, nn.
1, 2).
I have alluded in several ways to some editorial and proofreading
shortcomings in this anthology. Here are a few more: Quinn's first
name is misspelled on the opening Contents page (p. v), and Jaggar
informs us that Plato's Republic was "written in the fifth
century BC" (p. 352).
Still, there is some very good philosophy here, even if it doesn't
always land on paper in an entirely accurate manner. While not as
extensive as Peter Singer's Companion to Ethics (Blackwell, 1991)
or Lawrence C. and Charlotte B. Becker's Encyclopedia of Ethics
(Garland, 1992), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory is, for its
size, perhaps the best single-volume resource guide to contemporary
ethical theory.