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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Neo-Kantian Approach,
By A Customer
This review is from: Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business (Paperback)
This excellent volume sets Kant's rationalism on its head and considers the importance of irrationality and the rules rational beings follow in relation to themselves, namely, avoiding death, pain, disability, deception, theft, and violated obligations to oneself. Rational beings (when they are acting rationally) never desire these things for their own sake without a reason. Berumen says universal moral princples can only be based on these rules when we marry them with impartiality, thereby extending them to others. Unlike Kant, he provides concrete rules rather than an empty formula, and, unlike Kant, he does not treat them as absolutes. Rather, it is the exception to them which becomes an absolute, for it must be universalized given the specific universal properties of the relevant facts. Thus, the general moral rules are only tentatively universal insofar as a specific exception cannot be willed. Berumen's chapter on evil, which he defines as death and suffering, is one of the best analyses of the nature of evil I've read. Unlike most proponents of capitalism, Berumen does not justify it on utilitarian grounds, but on the basis that it is wrong to steal or disable another. His chapters on business are interesting and useful, especially the one dealing with the ends or mission of a business. He does not let a business off the moral hook when it is a contributory factor in causing evil, death or suffering, notwithstanding the fact people freely coose to buy its products or work there. With this said, he cautions against using the law as a means of correcting this except in the most greivous cases, for sometimes that causes an even greater moral problem. Berumen's writing is clear and elegant, and his analysis keen. The book is useful for a general audience wanting to know more about ethics and for those who are more philosophically minded. There are typos here and there, but not so many that they get in the way.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Remarkable Synthesis,
By humeanbeing (California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business (Paperback)
One of the few modern philsophy books with practical value...how to live one's life...and theoretical rigour from a philosophical perspective. This is a masterful synthesis of analytical philsophy, normative ethics, economics and business. I highly recommend this to serious students of any of these disciplines. Berumen begins by showing how ethical propositions have meaning and how logic applies to them; he then shows that the folly of moral relativism; and then he comes up with a set of moral principles based on our rational prohibitions and the concept of impartiality, which he contends represent the only universal moral rules possible. Berumen defines evil as the suffering of those who can suffer, whether human or other animals, and he says the basis of universal morality is to avoid causing others to suffer, that which all rational creatures would avoid for themselves without an overriding reason. Berumen then goes on to show how capitalism is more justifiable than socialism from an ethical perspective, primarily on the basis of rules against taking another's property or restricting his freedom to trade or produce. However, Berumen argues that these are not absolute rights...and that one can violate a moral precept when the facts and logic enable one to prescribe a universal exception to the circumstance, such that all rational people would prescribe the same thing given the same facts. Finally, he takes up various business issues such as corporate governance, the environment, selling, and fiduciary responsibility. His comments on the treatment of animals and our duties towards them are among the best I have encountered.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good and Evil Revisited,
By Bob Wright (LA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Do No Evil: Ethics with Applications to Economic Theory and Business (Hardcover)
This is a great book in need of more copyediting with some annoying but minor errors in spelling and such. However, the philosphy is superb... it's an excellent survey of ethics in general and, in particular,it puts forth a sound and useful theory, namely, that moral rules are the impartial extensions of our rational requirements, and that exceptions are prescriptions a la Hare...universal formulations that are logical and take into account the specific facts. The moral rules are built on the prohibitions against death, pain, disability, deception, loss of property, and violation of obligations, and, in general, their importance follows this order, though there are exceptions. Rational beings do not want death or pain for its own sake, without some justification. Morality is the impartial extension of this principle to others, but not just rational beings... to those that can suffer. I liked his stuff on economics, especially on competetion. Among other things, he shows that competition is not antithetical to cooperation, and that many activities necessarily involve competetion, such that society without it is unthinkable. The section on business has much to recommend it, particularly the section on the nature of a business, where Berumen shows tht a business is someone's property, not a democratic institution brought by the participants.
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