| How Should I Live? Philosophical Conversations About Moral Life by Randolph M. Feezell and Curtis L. Hancock Book review by William B. Lindley
This is a delightful and informative book. It addresses the question "Why be moral?" quite thoroughly, but in a manner easy to absorb. Like Ethical Argument, reviewed last issue, this is a recent college textbook. This book takes the form of a series of dialogues among a dozen or so people on a camping trip. After a day's hike, they sit around the evening campfire and get into moral philosophy. Each "day" is a chapter and deals with a different foundation of ethics. It begins with what ethics is and what it is not, and goes on to cover religion, relativism, self- interest, consequences, persons, and virtue. After the camping trip is over, a chapter is devoted to "female voices", with an approach quite different from the masculine thinking of the traditional categories. The dialogues allow the ideas and frames of reference to meet and to "question, criticize, and challenge" each other in friendly argument. We come to know the people who represent the different stances, to respect them, and even to like them. I have some quibbles. I think the ethics of rational self- interest is put down too easily. The Golden Rule is equated to "considering the interests of others as equal to one's own" (of equal weight?)(pp. 23, 27); ethical egoism is labelled "not a moral doctrine at all"(p. 101); it is assumed with insufficient analysis that egoism equals the sacrifice of others for self. True perhaps for Max Stirner, but not for Ayn Rand. Another quibble: in "female voices", the ethics of principle is contrasted with the (female) ethics of care., based on the work of Carol Gilligan. I find the discussion muddled, as it fails to distinguish between caring about and caring for. These concerns and several others represent my interaction with the book, and show how readily it brings the reader into thinking and arguing. Different readers will find different parts to disagree with. All will learn a lot. It's a fine book. Paragon House, c1991, paperback, 218 pages, $14.95.
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