Ethics: a very short introduction
Book review by Sandy Morrison
Title: Ethics: a very short introduction
Author: Simon Blackburn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Ethics are a central matter of concern to all Humanists, as we find our views in conflict with those of the more doctrinaire religions, yet by definition we care about how people interact and what actions might be considered good or desirable.
Blackburn provides a very effective review of the history of ethics, breaking the discussion up into subject areas rather than reviewing individual writers in depth. The style is clear and simple, broken up by the insertion of wry quotes, humorous illustrations and practical illustrations which bring abstract theory down to earth. If the text is at times hard to follow, I would attribute this to the close-packed and intense discussion rather than to any lack of writing skill or clarity.
Blackburn notes early on that humans are naturally 'ethical animals', not always in the sense of behaving well, but in the more general sense that we constantly evaluate and justify decisions, rather than just stating bald preferences for this or that course of (in)action. Yet as to the importance of theory, he observes that the impact of socially conscious writers such as Charles Dickens on the ethical climate is often greater than that of the academic theorist.
Ethics, he notes, can be uncomfortable to deal with when we are faced with the knowledge that (for example) our prosperity may be partly derived from the poverty of others, which allows us to buy their goods cheaply. Ethics, then, faces the danger that it may be used by one group as a means to justify its position, which outsiders consider misguided and unethical.
p>After this introductory section, Blackburn considers 'seven threats to ethics' starting with the argument that the 'death of God' leaves no basis for ethics. He draws attention to some of the absurdities of taking biblical instruction at face value, noting that the God of the Old Testament seems to have happily accepted slavery, child abuse and cruelty to animals.Most religions tend to perpetuate conflict and discrimination by always drawing a line between 'us, the chosen of God' and 'them, the unbelievers'. Far from being a threat to ethics, argues Blackburn, the death of God is a 'necessary clearing of the ground, on the way to revealing ethics for what it is'.
From there, he considers a number of ideas and events which form the central concerns of ethics: birth; death; desire and pleasure; the meaning of life; Utilitarianism, and the difficulties in interpreting the value and meaning of 'freedom' and 'rights'.
In the final section, 'Foundations', he discusses the attempts by different philosophers to find objective reasons for considering some courses of action to be more ethical than others. Many can be seen as deriving from Kant's famous 'categorical imperative': '...I ought never to act except in such a way that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law'; a rather more general principle than the old platitude of 'do as you would be done by'.
But having initially rejected the idea that ethical judgements are 'all relative' the author seems forced to admit in this concluding section that that is exactly the case: 'Our concern [in responding to relativism] can only be to answer the challenge from within a set of standards which we uphold'. The issue of whether we can be said to be achieving any form of moral progress 'can only be answered from within our own moral perspective'. This, then, leaves us back where we started from: such advances as we have won, in humanist terms, in increased respect for the environment, in combating racial and gender discrimination, in providing for the disadvantaged both locally and internationally, may be viewed by religionists of various persuasions in just the opposite light and may be opposed for reasons which are valid from within their own moral perspectives.
At the end, Blackburn provides the full text of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a modern and humanistic version of the Ten Commandments which has expanded to thirty articles. Yet, while applauding the aims and most of the details of the Declaration, I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that these modern commandments have been handed down by the bureaucrats on the high salary in just as arbitrary and unjustifiable a manner as those handed down by God on the high mountains to Moses.
As a survey of the history of ethical concepts and of their relationship to human desires and activities, Ethics succeeds admirably. The author succeeds also in reviewing and rejecting a number of philosophical and practical objections to secularist ethics.
But I am left with the same questions unanswered as I had when I first opened the book: can secularist ethics be placed on a more secure foundation than those of religion, given that religious standards are essentially irrelevant and frequently destructive? The answer seems to be no, and I continue to find that profoundly worrying.
'Ethics' [ISBN 0-19-280442-1] is one of a series of more than 100 'very short introductions to a wide range of topics, published by Oxford University press. Information on the series can be found at www.oup.co.uk/vsi
Sandy Morrison is a freelance technical writer and editor.
