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Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality

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This book is elementary only in the sense of starting at some fundamentals: a passage in Book II of Plato's _Republic_, in which two brothers ask Socrates to prove that dikę (Greek that coincides with both "justice" and "morality") is something to embrace for itself and in itself, as well as for the sake of its consequences. Responding to these questions in the context of morality takes up Part I (Lectures 1-9), and in the context of political justice Part II (Lecture 10). The final two lectures, comprising Part III, cover topics in "metaethics," a concern peculiar to 20th Century analytic philosophy, although the author (DW) ropes in Montaigne to help him out.

Even, or perhaps especially, if you've previously read various introductions to philosophical ethics, this book is not an easy read. What will slow you down is not that DW's sentences are obscure, but rather that they are exquisitely careful. For me, the book picked up steam especially in Lectures 6 through 8, in which DW critiques utilitarianism and its cousin, consequentialism, with very barbed and very pertinent irony, especially in the footnotes. I suppose this was the part of the book that brought me the greatest happiness, though if you're a utilitarian you won't likely agree. Very unusually for a book of Anglo-Saxon philosophy, Part I culminates in establishing a firm, non-utilitarian foundation for solidarity and reciprocity, a topic Continental philosophers are usually more comfortable speaking about. This section and some others have stimulated me to look more deeply into the philosophy of Leibniz, who seems to be, along with Aristotle and David Hume, one of DW's heroes.

This is a very profound and humane analysis of moral philosophy that is perhaps (sc., universally speaking; *certainly,* in my individual case) impossible to absorb in one reading. It takes a lot of effort from the reader, but is very well worth it. I expect to be referring to it for years to come.