Customer Reviews

Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought

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Reviews online already attest to how ground-breaking this book is meant to be for ethics and political philosophy. Below is a brief summary. The best extended treatment of this book can be found in the Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, where there are very detailed summaries presented by Alice Crary and Dick Bernstein.

Michael Thompson's book is an innovative combination of analytic philosophy (esp. Frege) and virtue ethics/Aristotelianism (esp. Philippa Foot, Aristotle). The first chapter basically claims that while our judgments can take several logical forms (s is p), one such form has been grossly overlooked: the kind related to forms of life, or life forms, or species (Gattungswesen in Marx). Here, we see the Frege-Aristotle combo: like Frege, he looks at the logical form judgments can take a priori, but like Aristotle, he is focused on teloi, the forms or end-directedness of living beings. He then proceeds to show that this logical form ... this kind of judgment, which we assume in our discussion of living beings (incl. humans) and have access to a priori, has normative content, and therefore is an a priori basis for virtue ethics.

The second essay is certainly the most difficult and consists of a theory of action, whereby we don't need to explain actions by reference to psychological states (beliefs, desires), but only by way of more actions. It resists summary the most.

The third essay is on practices and dispositions, which are key concepts in moral and political philosophy, and ultimately claims that they presume the same logical form as does the first chapter's inquiry.

An Introduction to these three extended papers/chapters/divisions is essential for figuring out what is interesting about his claims .... most of what is written is densely argued, and the main thrust of the project can easily be lost.

Unless anyone is familiar with his work already, it is highly recommended that one carefully study the Introduction, read it at least twice, and then move on for a slow, laborious but ultimately very insightful read of the rest of the work. Anyone interested in virtue ethics cannot pass up this innovative combination of Frege and Aristotle.