Lust

In the uneven 7 Deadly sins series, copublished by Oxford University press and the New York Public Library, three of the volumes are stinkers, one is above average, and three are quite good. The best of the lot is Robert Thurman's treatment of anger; third best is Francine Prose on gluttony. Second place goes to philosopher Simon Blackburn's witty, urbane, and analytically precise treatment of lust. In Blackburn's hands (pardon the bad pun) lust loses the automatically pessimistic sheen of sin that the Christian tradition has bestowed on it. As Blackburn says (p. 27), "we [should] no more criticize lust because it can get out of hand, than we [should][ criticize hunger because it can lead to gluttony or thirst because it can lead to drunkenness." Looked at in itself, lust--desire for sexual pleasure--is neutral. Context and disposition are the dividing lines in separating moral from immoral lust. Lust that fully recognizes the partner as a fellow human being and desires his or her sexual fulfillment in the encounter is, says Blackburn, the optimal situation. There's a kind of feedback look that occurs when sexual partners mutually recognize one another: I desire your pleasure, and seeing it enhances my pleasure, which enhances yours... Blackburn refers to this as Hobbesian unity (from a passage from Hobbes in which he writes of the relationship between imagination and mutual pleasuring in sex). This doesn't mean that all lust which falls short of Hobbesian unity is tarnished. One of the healthier aspects of Blackburn's approach is his recognition of degrees. As he says (p. 133), "if Hobbesian unity cannot be achieved, it can at least be aimed at, and even if it cannot be aimed at, it can be imagined and dreamed." Blackburn's book achieves what all good philosophical treatments do: it simply has the ring of familiar common sense.

Well, it's good to see at least one philosopher who understands lust better than most historical figures. I had more fun reading this book than I have reading any book on such a serious moral topic. Simon Blackburn lives in the real world and he writes as if he intends to help everyone else who lives there as well. Absolutely must reading for the serious and not-so-serious minded as well. The press that printed this book is to be commended for having selected Simon Blackburn for this task (writing clearly about the meaning and importance of "lust".

Simon Blackburn has given us one of the top two of the 7 Deadly Sins series - hugely enjoyable, highly informative and one of those rare things: an intelligent book that neither patronises nor bores the reader to death. (For the record, I think the other one is Envy) Most philosophy books fall into two deadly and sinful categories. They tend to be either simplistic, so that anyone with a serious interest beyond degree level becomes frustrated and dissatisfied; or they're way too 'academic' and technical, forcing the reader to tear his (or her) hair out by the roots and retreat to the sports channels on television. Blackburn avoids both hellish places here, giving an intelligent overview of his allocated sin while keeping the reader pinned to the pages as though reading a novel. His amusing and often almost poetic writing style not only grips, but leads you down alleyways of the history of ideas that both entertain and get you thinking. But that's his chief problem, because once you think a little about what you're reading, you realise the flaw in his method of argument. He's simply enjoying himself too much. This shouldn't hurt, and really it doesn't; on the other hand it leaves you with the feeling that he's missed something along the way. Sin is, after all, quite deadly, and rather than condemning as prudes or psychologically scarred misfits those people who have historically told us that it's bad, it would have been helpful to have been taken along the darker streets of lust for a change. Hell, it's fashionable these days to defend things like lust. John Portman's In Defense of Sin is a shining example of reader-friendly 'diet academia' which gets the blood flowing and the mind racing, but it's ultimately little more than an excuse to be naughty and dress it up as a "serious examination of why we believe x y or z". For anybody who has experienced lust and got their fingers (or anything else for that matter) burnt, Blackburn just doesn't go far enough. Every one of the Deadly Sins has its friendly brother whom we mistake for the real thing. Envying somebody else's car while we drive down the street in our Skoda may technically be called envy, but it's a barmy thought process that would lead anybody to think that because it only scratches us and doesn't cut us, envy isn't necessarily that bad after all. The same goes for lust. While a 'Hobbesian unity' sounds fantastic, it doesn't account for the darker or more destructive sides of the thing. We don't need to mention the agonies of rape or other forms of sexual abuse to see this. Imagine simply lusting after other women while your wife waits at home with the dinner, or think of the discomfort you might feel upon seeing a boyfriend looking hungrily at another girl's legs... Lust can hurt love. Lust can cause us to turn away from more giving feelings. Lust can draw us away from, not always 'Hobbesianly towards', our partners. Why didn't Blackburn discuss this? Why di

+++++ This book that contains an essay by philosophy professor Simon Blackburn, analyzes one of the "Seven Deadly Sins," namely lust. (The other six are pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, and gluttony.) Lust and even more so the "ideas about lust" are examined from an historical, artistic, religious, psychological, and philosophical perspective. Even though there are different types of lust, Blackburn is concerned with sexual lust. He explains: "Lust is a psychological state with a goal in mind...the desire that infuses the body, for sexual activity and its pleasures for their own sake." Specifically, some of the topics Blackburn looks into with respect to lust are as follows: desire, excess, suppression, Christian viewpoint, cultural consequences, and evolutionary psychology. Perhaps, the most important concept presented in this essay (at least for me) is the idea of "Hobbesian Unity" developed by seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Here, there is a "pure mutuality" of lust. That is, "I desire you, and desire your desire for me." Who are some of the people you will encounter in this book? There is mention of Aristotle, Plato, Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Saint Augustine, Bill Clinton, Dante, Richard Dawkins, Freud, Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Bertrand Russell. If you're not familiar with some of these names, don't worry. Blackburn tells us who these people are. In fact, Blackburn's entire essay is clearly and precisely written. Finally, there are two sets of artistic photographs or plates in this book (eight pictures per set). The first eight are in black and white while the final eight are in color. These are used to highlight points that Blackburn makes throughout his essay. In conclusion, I found this slim book to be very insightful. It cleared up the many, many wrong and contradictory ideas regarding the most misunderstood and interesting "deadly sin," namely lust!!! (first published 2004; preface; introduction; 15 chapters; main narrative 135 pages; notes; index) +++++

There are seven classic deadly sins, and most of them are deadly dull. I couldn't read a book about gluttony, for instance, and pride, envy, anger, sloth, and greed are all either humdrum or so obviously bad for you that there would seem no point in studying on them. Oxford University Press, however, in conjunction with the New York Public Library, has brought out a volume on each of them, none of which I will read. But lust, well, that's another subject altogether. There's a deadly sin that I really like, and refuse to see as sinful. Lust is worth participating in and thinking about, and the Oxford volume _Lust_ by philosopher Simon Blackburn provides an encouraging set of essays that will not please those who insist that lust is just as bad as gluttony or greed. "It might seem, then," writes Blackburn, "quixotic or paradoxical, or even indecent, to try to speak up for lust. But that is what I shall try to do." Try, nay - he succeeds.Lust has gotten plenty of bad press, a short history of which Blackburn enjoys giving. Plato put a shamefulness upon lust that it has never subsequently shaken. It was an axiom, however, that shame was inherently connected to lust, and that although there was no shame in enjoying a good meal, there was in enjoying a good coition. Saint Augustine has the reputation of demonizing lust for all Christians thereafter, but Blackburn points out that by the time he came along, "the cult of virginity was in full swing." Augustine insisted that it was regrettable to feel pleasure when one impregnated one's wife, but coitus just for the sake of pleasure was incomparably naughty. Though Christianity mostly abandoned such extreme views, and though Augustine might be seen as a moderate compared to other writers on the subject, lust has never recovered from the calumny Augustine had thrown on it. Lust, however, is essential; we are all products of it, and even religious moralists today generally allow that it has a place, even though they might define that place as only within sanctified marriage. Blackburn's main philosophical defense of lust is, surprisingly, the seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who is not usually noted for liberal views. Hobbes wrote of the "delight of the mind" in reciprocal pleasure-giving, a play of imagination as well as of genitals. There was nothing intrinsically immoral about it. _Lust_ is a little, concentrated book, with color illustrations of various masterpieces depicting humans and gods at sexual play. Blackburn has reinforced his view by quotations of poetry, mostly Shakespeare but also Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay (who in a sonnet admits a lover's proximity made her "feel a certain zest/ To bear your body's weight upon my breast", but adds, "let me make it plain:/ I find this frenzy insufficient reason/ For conversation when we meet again.") Blackburn's optimistic volume places lust quite properly as a central delight in life. Those other deadly