David Boonin

The aim of this volume is to "serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists" and to provide "the most convenient, accessible guide to Hobbes available." As with any such anthology, the quality of the individual contributions and the degree to which they contribute to these goals vary somewhat from paper to paper. But on the whole, the work succeeds admirably and constitutes a valuable resource for those interested in learning more about the great English philosopher. Space does not permit even a cursory discussion of all fourteen articles contained in the volume, so I will instead offer a few comments about the work as a whole and a few select comments on some of the particular papers within it.

This book brings together a large and diverse collection of philosophical papers addressing a wide variety of public policy issues. Topics covered range from long-standing subjects of debate such as abortion, punishment, and freedom of expression, to more recent controversies such as those over gene editing, military drones, and statues honoring Confederate soldiers. Part I focuses on the criminal justice system, including issues that arise before, during, and after criminal trials. Part II covers matters of national defense and sovereignty, including chapters on military ethics, terrorism, and immigration. Part III, which explores political participation, manipulation, and standing, includes discussions of issues involving voting rights, the use of nudges, and claims of equal status. Part IV covers a variety of issues involving freedom of speech and expression. Part V deals with questions of justice and inequality. Part VI considers topics involving bioethics and biotechnology. Part VII is devoted to beginning of life issues, such as cloning and surrogacy, and end of life issues, such as assisted suicide and organ procurement. Part VIII navigates emerging environmental issues, including treatments of the urban environment and extraterrestrial environments.

The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics is a comprehensive collection of recent research on the ethics of sexual behavior, representing a wide range of perspectives. It addresses a number of traditional subjects in the area, including questions about pre-marital, extra-marital, non-heterosexual, and non-procreative sex, and about the nature and significance of sexual consent, sexual desire, and sexual activity, as well as a variety of more recent topics, including sexual racism, sexual ableism, sex robots, and the #metoo response to sexual harassment. Each chapter defends a substantive thesis about the topic it addresses and the handbook as a whole thereby provides a strong foundation for future research in this important and growing field of inquiry.

In Leviathan Thomas Hobbes defines moral philosophy as 'the science of Virtue and Vice', yet few modern readers take this description seriously. Moreover, it is typically assumed that Hobbes' ethical views are unrelated to his views of science. Influential modern interpreters have portrayed Hobbes as either an amoralist, or a moral contractarian, or a rule egoist, or a divine command theorist. David Boonin-Vail challenges all these assumptions and presents a new, and very unorthodox, interpretation of Hobbes's ethics. He shows that Hobbes is best understood as embracing a theory of virtue concerned with the development of good character traits rather than with rules of behaviour. In focusing in a quite new way on Hobbes's moral theory this book is likely to attract considerable attention amongst both philosophers and intellectual historians.

THE TRIAL OF SOCRATES by I. F. Stone Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1988. 282 pp., $18.95 Stone's attempt to ?mitigate?; the Athenian verdict against Socrates is disputed. Stone's argument that Socrates was guilty of teaching future tyrants amounts to guilt by association. Stone's claim that Socrates? philosophy presented a serious threat to Athens is incorrect. Socrates? view of human society as a herd was harmless, since he considered himself a loyal part of it. His insistence that knowledge lies in definitions is not shown by Stone to be dangerous, because Stone fails to show that it is misguided. And Socrates? defense of the individual soul as the seat of virtue proves no threat, since his own life demonstrates that it is perfectly compatible with good citizenship.

This chapter provides an introduction to the Palgrave Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy. It begins by discussing the many ways that philosophical reasoning can fruitfully be brought to bear on matters of public policy, providing examples in each case that are drawn from the volume. This includes different kinds of contributions philosophers can make and different kinds of methods they can use when making them. The chapter then provides a sequential overview of all the entries in the volume, broken down into eight parts, and concludes by emphasizing that the work as a whole should be viewed as something like a snapshot of the field rather than as a fully comprehensive and representative survey.

Dissatisfied with the narrow choice between deontological and consequentialist moral theories, a number of contemporary philosophers have urged that we instead turn to the example of Aristotle and develop an ethics of virtue. This dissertation seeks to affirm the merits of such an approach, but argues that a more profitable model can be found in the unlikely figure of Thomas Hobbes. ;One task of the dissertation is to establish that Hobbes is, in fact, best understood as a sort of virtue ethicist. I begin by taking seriously Hobbes's claim that ethics is a branch of natural philosophy, and by examining the science of human nature upon which his ethics is thus intended to rest. I then examine and reject three important interpretations of Hobbes's ethics and in doing so identify the elements of his theory of moral virtue: that ethics is concerned with what makes just people rather than with what makes just acts, and that a just person is one who is disposed by nature to do the right thing, and to want to do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do. Finally, I examine Hobbes's attempt to ground this theory of virtue in his science of human nature. This is shown to involve two arguments which aim to demonstrate that the cooperation necessary for human beings to live well is best secured by cultivating the moral virtues. The argument from revealed disposition maintains that agents are judged according to the character traits that are revealed by their actions, and the argument from habituation maintains that agents can best ensure that they will perform just acts with sufficient consistency by coming to value doing them for their own sake. ;Having articulated and defended the interpretation of Hobbes as a virtue ethicist, the dissertation concludes with a critical examination of the moral theory itself. The penultimate chapter details a wide variety of objections that can be aimed at Hobbesian virtue ethics, and attempts to develop responses to them. And the final chapter attempts to show that, despite these potential problems, Hobbes's theory has considerable advantages which recommend it over the rival virtue theories of Aristotle and of some of his contemporary admirers