Good and Evil (Great Minds Series) [Paperback]

Richard Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1999 | Series: Great Minds Series

The discussion of good and evil must not be confined to the sterile lecture halls of academics but related instead to ordinary human feelings, needs, and desires, says noted philosopher Richard Taylor. Efforts to understand morality by exploring human reason will always fail because we are creatures of desire as well. All morality arises from our intense and inescapable longing. The distinction between good and evil is always clouded by rationalists who convert the real problems of ethics into complex philosophical puzzles. In the first part, Taylor looks for a more meaningful conception by re-examining and rejecting the whole rationalistic tradition that dominates philosophical ethics. The second part provides an empirical explanation of good and evil, noting that one does not have to look too far to find prime examples of the failure of fixed moral rules. Including important commentary on Joseph Fletcher's groundbreaking situation ethics, and Aristotle's virtues (e.g. magnanimity and pride), Taylor rounds out the book by developing a philosophy of aspiration -- personal worth as an ethical ideal - to replace the morality of duty. He offers a modified form of situation ethics to fit the contemporary problems we face.

Product Details

• Paperback: 325 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; Revised edition (November 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 157392752X
• ISBN-13: 978-1573927529
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #494,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars << NEW EDITION *IS* AVAILABLE! >> Excellent probe into purely secular view of morality/meaning, October 23, 1998

By 

Glenn Camhi (Southern CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Good and Evil (Paperback)

(Note: THIS BOOK *IS* AVAILABLE! If you're seeing this on a page that lists the book as "Unavailable," click on "Paperback (Rev)" under Product Details / Other Editions for the REVISED 1999 EDITION.)

GOOD AND EVIL: A NEW DIRECTION is an amazingly readable and thorough inquiry into the nature of human ethics from a purely secular point of view. Without God or any other supernatural force or "creator" of human beings, what is the true nature of morality? What can be the purpose of life? Richard Taylor explores these grand questions with disarming clarity and a sense of exciting discovery.

Unlike so many other writers and philosophers in the field, Taylor avoids the usual pitfalls of circular arguments and cheated "self-evident" givens to defend secular morality and meaning. Taylor's is one of the most rigorously honest and solid explorations of secular morality I have read. (A fine companion is Michael Shermer's "The Science of Good and Evil.")

Instead of the typical appeal to reason alone, which Taylor cogently argues can never truly explain or defend morality, GOOD AND EVIL appeals first and foremost to innate human desire and will. His crisp style and easy use of fable and analogy (most notably, clever variations of the Sisyphus myth: what could make Sisyphus' task seem "meaningful"?) make this book appropriate for the casual reader and advanced philosophy, psychology, theology and/or anthropology student alike. Sticking to a purely secular view without condescension toward other points of view, Taylor not only offers airtight explanations of morality and meaning, but he sends the reader off with a greater sense of hope and love of life than do many theological and spiritual texts on the same topic. I had some minor quibbles with the final chapter, but nothing to diminish the book overall.

No matter what one's personal point of view, this book is a must for all who ask the big questions and find the answers lacking. Perhaps it's an even greater must for those who feel confident they have all the answers.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perils and Peculiarities of a Rationalistic Ethics, May 6, 2004

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Good and Evil (Great Minds Series) (Paperback)

It was Vanderbilt philosopher John Lachs who said that only the philosopher, reflecting on her homogenized sample group of professor-colleagues and college-minded students, really think that by-in-large, humans are rational animals. The problem with ethics and 'moral theory' today is that it drastically overemphasizes the power of rationalism and appeals to...well...theory. Plato, Kant, Mill, and most of those in between have 'argued' for certain moral systems based on some objective standard (the pleasure principle, categorical imperative, etc.) accessible it is said, through the faculty of reason. There is, it is said, a True Morality and general principles therein (that exist whether we think they do or not); only the reasoned, contemplative mind can know them.

Richard Taylor has a problem with that. His goal is to examine rataionalism's manifestations in the history of ethical philosophy, argue why that conception is flawed, and replace it with something different, better, and hopefully better capable to portray morality as it really is - rather than as philosophers (who often value consistency over accuracy) tend to pretend it exists.

All that said, this book is literally one of the best reading philosophy books I have EVER read (I'd place it in my top ten). Taylor's three sections (history, argument against, elucidation) are simply first rate for their clarity, terseness, conversationalism, and structure. It is rare to read a 300 page book that can present a history, argue against its principles, present new principles, argue for them, present details on them, and still have you interested. This book does that. Even for those that are interested only in a general text on moral philosophy's evolution, buy this book for the first 150 pages; everyone from Protogoras to Plato, Kant to Mill is discussed in an insightful and delightful manner.

Finally we come to the argument against rationalism. Taylor's view to replace rationalism is a tough one for philosophers to swallow: general moral principles of the kind to objectively ground morality to don't exist after all. Morality, rather, is simply our set of rules (however informal) in living with others. What is good? What is evil? What is the moral life? Says Taylor, "No general principles or objective mind-irrelative standard is going to help us here." Morality is conventional in the sense that it is solely based on human contrivance (and we are all checks and balances on eachother, even without the luxury of objective principles). But, though relative, morality is still based in large part on our human natures. But it is not reason we are after (as philosophers like to say it is) but emotion.

Taylor brings up many reasons why he thinks this is so, but one in particular stands out (as I'd been beginning to suspect it anyhow). Philosophers talk a lot about general principles. But when they do, they 'justify' them by appealing to the results they lead to. For the principle, "See others as ends, rather than merely as means," (Kant) to be justified, philosophers appeal to experience (what situations the principle leads to) and sees if the results accord with our intuition. To find the theory wanting, all a clever philosopher must do is to show that the theory, when consistently applied, leads to strange results - ones that don't accord with our pre-existing intuitions.

So, Taylor argues, why not just cut out the middle man? IF we already 'know' that certain acts are wrong (as we test 'principles' by whether they accord with those intuitions) then why are we pretending that moral principles are real, rather than simply communicative generalizations that WE create to 'justify' what we already knew was right or wrong? In other words, while general principle is valid as a pragmatic and commuicative device (it gets us where we need to go), that doesn't negate the fact that it is artificial, not something that exists but is created, like god, in our image, and anything but fixed.

He is not suggesting that we become simply irrationalists; only that objective standards of right and wrong don't exist. If the deranged person thinks that killing is good, we can say that by our conventions he is wrong, and we can say that his principles are not as conducive (as the non-aggressors are) to living well with others. We can also say that we regard him as wrong because we are able to 'put ourselves in the victims place.' What we cannot say is that (a) there is some objective principle to appeal to existing 'in reality'; (b) that the judgment has much to do with reason rather than the emotion of the thing. What's more, any rule we DO pretend exists as an absolute is at best context-relative and sometimes highly so. It may be relative to time (what if the murder had been of an Indian in the 1800's?), place (is it wrong to practice infanticide amongst primitive tribes of brazil that do it all the time?) or even person.

I rarely spend so much time reviewing any one book, but this one literally is just to good to be limited to 3 paragraphs. I hope this becomes a classic someday and I hope that moral philosphy - the drudge that it is - gains much from it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Begin and end here., October 21, 2003

By 

Maine Writer "David" (Maine, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Good and Evil (Paperback)

I had the pleasure of taking three classes with Professor Taylor at the University of Rochester. They are the few classes I've taken with me throughout my life's journey. This book is wonderful example of the clear thinking, and simplicity of thought, that are the gifts of truly brilliant philosophers. Taylor does not try to overwhelm the reader with difficult vocabulary or ornate sentences. He doesn't skirt around issues. He tries to be both practical and insightful, and succeeds on both counts. Think of this as an owner's manual for the thoughtful person.

I highly recommend it.