Review
This is an unusually pleasing introductory (but neither elementary nor trite) work in ethics. Time spent in David Wiggins's company is time well and pleasantly spent. This book is accessible to educated and thoughtful readers of all sorts. In a time when much work in ethics is so laden with one (usually unattractive) philosophical theory or another, it is refreshing to find a work by a major philosopher who wishes his audience to rely only on a grasp of moral notions 'preferably undisturbed by theory.' I know of no other recent (or nonrecent) book that occupies quite the philosophical territory that this one does, and certainly none that does so with such quiet effectiveness and graciousness.
--C. D. C. Reeve, Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and author of
Love's ConfusionsWiggins has a distinctive take on the subject that aims to draw important insights from contending traditions and canonical figures. His guiding line is not to stint on morality's demandingness or categoricality, related to an appropriate conception of reciprocity and human dignity (Kantian themes), but always to insist on finding a place for ethical ideas within human psychology as we find it, taking the full measure of our psychic resources (a Humean theme), never to overreach in the degree of precision the subject admits of, and always to be firmly rooted in practical life as we experience it (an Aristotelian theme). In a slogan: Moral theory with a human face.
--Stephen Darwall, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan and author of
The Second-Person StandpointIt is virtually impossible to give a summary of
Ethics that does justice to the depth and breadth of topics covered in David Wiggins' new introduction to moral theory.
Ethics is both highly informative, providing detailed expositions of the arguments of main figures in the history of moral philosophy, and engagingly polemical, offering an overall argument for a pluralistic, Humean conception of morality...It is a book well-worth spending time with, not only for the compelling and challenging arguments Wiggins makes on behalf of a Humean approach to morality, but also for the remarkably detailed and incisive presentation of the ground he covers.
--Sirine Shebaya (
Metapsychology )
There are few moral philosophers who will not learn something by studying this book and giving it the concentration it demands. Whether he is talking about Kant or John Stuart Mill, Rawls or John Mackie, Wiggins has subtle and interesting things to say.
--Simon Blackburn (
Times Higher Education Supplement )
From the Inside Flap
Almost everyone has wondered at some time or another why morality requires what it appears to require and how, if at all, it speaks to us. In
Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality, David Wiggins surveys the answers most commonly proposed for such questions–gathering insights from Hume, Kant, the utilitarians and the post-utilitaritarian thinkers of the twentieth century. The view of morality he then proposes draws not only on Hume but on other sources as diverse as Aristotle, Simone Weil, and present day thinkers such as Philippa Foot. As need arises, he pursues a variety of related issues and engages additional thinkers–Plato and Bernard Williams on egoism, altruism and benevolence, Schopenhauer and Kolnai on evil, Leibniz and Rawls on impartiality, and Montaigne and Mackie on 'moral relativism' among others. After pointing to the special role within morality of the sentiments of solidarity and reciprocity that human beings find within themselves, and the part that these and cognate sentiments play in sustaining our ordinary ideas of agency and responsibility, Wiggins turns to the political sphere and looks for a neo-Aristotelian conception of justice that secures it to some of the same sentiments. Finally, he confronts the question of the objectivity or reality of ethical demands, insisting on the emptiness of any 'metaethics' that ignores the rootedness of morality and the multiplicity of its persuasive resources. The result is an illuminating and original book that makes a compelling introduction to ethics for anyone who looks to philosophy to expand their own thoughts or to husband the whole variety of our ethical ideas, study their provenance, and ascertain their collective reach and aggregated power.
