Twentieth Century Ethical Theory

This is a review of Twentieth Century Ethical Theory, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Joram G. Haber. This is an anthology of classic essays and book excerpts. The title is slightly misleading. There is a lot of very important twentieth-century ethical theory that is not sampled here. You will not find the so-called "New Confucian Maniesto" by T'ang Chun-i, Mou Tsung-san, et al. There is nothing included by Sartre or Simone de Beauvior. Habermas and Foucault are absent. In short, this is really an anthology of English-language (mostly Anglo-American) works in the mainstream "analytic" tradition. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," as Seinfeld put it. But I want you to know what you're getting (and what you're not). Those who are not conversant with contemporary philosophy should also be advised that "ethical theory" here means "meta-ethics" and "normative ethics." Meta-ethics is concerned with that meaning and justification of ethical claims. Are statements like "Murder is wrong" capable of any justification? (Prichard says, No, in "Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?") Does "Honesty is a virtue" report a matter of fact or just express one's feelings? (Stevenson says it is the latter in "The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms.") Normative ethics, in contrast, examines theories that purport to tell us how to determine what is right and wrong. Is the right action simply the one that produces the best consequences for everyone as a whole? (So argues Smart in "Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism.") Or does the end not always justify the means (as Williams suggests in "A Critique of Utilitarianism")? In short, you will not find in this collection any specific advice for how you ought to live your life, or any discussion of issues in "applied ethics." (Capital punishment, abortion and censorship are the stock topics of applied ethics courses). Having made all those qualifications, let me say that if you are in fact looking for an anthology of the classic essays of twentieth-century, Anglo-American, mainstream "analytic" meta-ethics and normative theory, this is an EXCELLENT choice. Almost every major figure and article-length text is included. This is a perfect anthology for a graduate student or professor in philosophy or related disciplines. If you are a philosopher (especially one specializing in ethics), you NEED to have read all these essays. If you are not a philosopher, but your career requires literacy in general philosophical ethics, you (probably) cannot be faulted for not having read anything that's not here. This is probably not a good book for the general reader, unless you really want to jump head-first into academic philosophy. I have a few minor complaints. I was a little surprised not to see Harry Frankfurt's "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," which has spawned an entire secondary literature. (Try doing a web search for that title and you'll see what I mean.) I also would have lik

This is a fabulous historical anthology of twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophical thinking about ethics. Cahn and Haber have organized this collection chronologically rather than thematically. The anthology consists of four sections, each of which covers between twenty and thirty years. The selections here are extremely well-chosen, and almost all the major figures and trends are represented somewhere in this collection of papers and short book excerpts. The editors' emphasis is clearly on variety here, as they've included more than one selection from only a handful of figures. Moreover, where a particular individual does have more than one selection, those selections are usually on distinct topics. It's possible to discern the general story of twentieth-century ethical thinking behind the decisions made by the editors in selecting the elements of this collection. That story, in short, is the following: G. E. Moore's Open Question Argument, and the non-naturalist intuitionism to which it led him, sets the process of twentieth-century meta-ethics in motion; early noncognitivism appears as a response to the perceived inadequacies of the sort of intuitionism defender by Moore and others; there is a backlash against these early, crude forms of noncognitivism that leads to more sophisticated forms of noncognitivism and to both naturalist and non-naturalist forms of cognitivism; and the work of Rawls, et al. on normative ethics leads to a renewed interest among analytic philosophers in normative ethics and in the application of philosophical methods to thinking about substantial moral issues. Each of this anthology's sections tells part of that story. The first part provides the reader with an introduction to early intuitionism (Moore, Prichard, Ross, Ewing); the second part illustrates the eventual disillusionment with this form of intuitionism (Mackie, Strawson, Frankena) and the development of revisionary noncognitivism (Perry, Wittgenstein, Ayer, Stevenson) as a response to the perceived excesses of the intuitionist's metaphysical and epistemological views; the third part details the growing disillusionment with noncognitivism (Firth, Lewis, Geach, Foot) and the development of more sophisticated versions of the doctrine (Nowell-Smith and Hare) in response to those worries; and the fourth section reveals the proliferation of types of ethical thinking in contemporary philosophy, including both a revival of interest in normative ethics (Rawls's work, debates about utilitarianism, contractualism/contractarianism, virtue ethics) and the development of a wider variety of meta-ethical views (Nagel, Railton, Harman, Wiggins). This is, of course, an overly simplified account of the contents of this volume, since each section includes selections that dissent from the consensus of their respective periods as well as works from figures who aren't as much read now as they were in their own time.Now, the reader should realize that the vast