Customer Reviews

A Very Bad Wizard: Morality Behind the Curtain

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*A Very Bad Wizard* was a McSweeney's Book Release Club selection, and it took me a while to even pick this book up and start it because, frankly, it just didn't seem like it would be that interesting. But I was wrong - this relatively informal philosophy book is absolutely amazing. Here are nine casual, thought-provoking conversations covering the role of evolution in morality, the existence (or non-existence) of free will, moral relativism, etc.

This is a wonderfully edited, enjoyable, often humorous, fascinating read. This is the kind of book I am going to lend to a friend and then make sure I get it back so I can lend it again.

This is a fascinating book, without doubt. It will be found challenging by the very religious and by Rational Mind uber alles types alike (a good gift for both types of friends/family members). The interdisciplinary interview serial was a refreshing approach at illuminating a challenging topic. Rather than try for a comprehensive thesis which would inevitably be dry and incomplete (for some) Sommers has created an armature of thoughtful conversations about cutting edge research. From there, readers are invited to contemplate morality and free will and pursue their own musings from the conversation.

Tamler Sommers collection of interviews with philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, primatologists and more is a compelling book of ideas. Each interview explores the question of morality from a different angle, each conversation seems to build on the last, and the result is a page-turner that you want to read again as soon as you finish. Tamler Sommers asks complex philosophical questions ("Does free will exist?") with historical or real-world examples or thought experiments. The chapter with psychologist Philip Zimbardo takes the reader behind the scenes of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment -- and into the mind of Zimbardo, the experimenter, as he loses control of the experiment and himself.

I found only chapter eight (out of the nine chapters) to be slightly dry -- and I suspect I would appreciate it again on a second reading.

You can find a few of these conversations available in full on the website for The Believer.

The book also has the potential to lead people to think you're reading a Harry Potter knock-off. (Added bonus?)

A book of interviews with philosophers, (mostly) on the topics of free will and morality, that ends with the line 'Let's have another beer.' The all-too-rare sort of book that is clear, accessible, and likeable but also makes the reader feel a lot smarter while reading it. Highly recommended.

This was a required book for a philosophy class I took by the author. His book is actually very interesting and I highly recommend it to beginners in philosophy.

Common-appeal books usually fall into one of two traps: (1) They dilute content for a serious reader, or (2) they leave people behind with dry, technical language. Tamler Sommers avoids both. The interviews in this book are engaging, but the ideas are rich enough that they reward serious consideration and discussion.

Sommers interviews some of the most influential people working on morality-related topics today, and the interviewees come from various disciplines (philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and more). Each interview itself gives a unique perspective on morality, but when combined across the chapters, the interviews give a comprehensive idea of the interesting developments in contemporary scholarship on morality.

This is a book that reads quickly but is best savored. Anyone remotely interested in thinking about "doing what's right" would not only be benefited by reading this, but they'd also be entertained.

Glad I read it. Sommers gives Strawson's logical views about morality their due. He then entertainingly spends the rest of the book endeavoring to find a comfortable position back in his native framework of irrationality. W. Paul Mouchon

The interview format provides for a rare glimpse into their personalities, and Tamler lucidly draws out the importance of their work for the interdisciplinary study of morality. Anyone with an interest in this burgeoning field would undoubtedly enjoy the book.

A Plato wannabe. The book starts off well and clever enough but turns into a mess of philosophical swiss cheese that leaves me pulling out all my hair half way into the book. His conclusions(if they are conclusions?) are arguable and full of obvious pot holes. The author's ideas are tainted with unreflected social conditioning and biases that you think with his educational background would appreciate approaching the morale issue with more of a scientific method then sprinkling points with rhetoric.

However it's worth a gander and the cover artwork is pretty sexy.