Julia Driver

This volume of essays in honour of Philippa Foot constitutes a high quality Festschrift. There is no doubt that Philippa Foot's career is worthy of such a volume. She is one of the most influential philosophers of the past few decades and her work has given rise to, and seeded, much debate in contemporary moral philosophy. She has written on a wide variety of topics — virtue ethics, the doctrine of double effect, naturalism, and practical reasoning. The essays in this volume touch on all of these issues. They are written by such distinguished philosophers as G. E. M. Anscombe, Simon Blackburn, Rosalind Hursthouse, Anthony Kenny, Gavin Lawrence, John McDowell, Warren Quinn, David Sachs, T. M. Scanlon, Michael Thompson, David Wiggins, and Bernard Williams. They all succeed in honouring Professor Foot's work. Given space considerations, and considering the forum for this review, I will focus on those essays that are of most relevance to consequentialism.

Elinor Mason has provided an account of blame and blameworthiness that is pluralistic. There are, broadly speaking, three ways in which we aptly blame -- and ordinary sense, directed at those with poor quality of the will, and then a detached sense and an extended sense, in which blame is aptly directed towards those without poor quality of the will as it is normally understood. In this essay I explore and critically discuss Mason's account. While I argue that she has identified interesting aspects of the way in which we hold people morally responsible, I disagree with certain features of the account, in particular, that ordinary blame issues in demands and that there is any deep sense in which we can simply decide to take on responsibility.

Political Writings. By Joseph Priestley, edited by Peter Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) xxxix + 147 pp. £30.00 cloth, £10.95 paper. Blessings in Disguise; or, The Morality of Evil. By Jean Starobinski, translated by A. Goldham‐mer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993) 235 pp. $39.95 cloth. Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality. By Robert Pynsent (London: Oxford University Press, 1994) 244 pp. $49.94/£25.00 cloth. Voltaire: Political Writings. Edited by David Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) lii + 290 pp. $59.95/£35.00 cloth, $16.95/ £12.95 paper. The Rise and Fall of the Grenvilles: The Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos 1710–1921. By John Beckette (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994) xii + 308 pp. $79.95 cloth; $29.95 paper. Guillaume le Taciturne. By Bernard Quilliet (Paris: Fayard, 1994) 654 pp. FF. 170. Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1880. By Anthony Grafton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994) 243 pp. $16.95 paper. Health and Wealth. In Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fall 1994. 216 pp. US $7.95. Histoire de la Santé. By Andre Rauch (Paris: Que sais‐je? Presses Univer‐sitaires de France, 1994) 127 pp. The Language of Sex: Five Voices from Northern France around 1200. By John W. Baldwin; The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994) 331 pp., $43.25/£29.95 cloth. Berthe Morisot's Images of Women. By Anne Higonnet (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 1994) 311 pp. $19.95 paper. Innocence Lost. By Christopher Gowans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), xiii + 257 pp., $45.00/£32.50 cloth. The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the Libro de buen amor. By John Dagenais (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) xxiii + 278 pp. Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, Aesthetics. By Stephen K. White (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1994) xx + 95 pp., $17.95 paper. Reason, Will and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics. Edited by John Cottingham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) 333 pp. Richard III: A Medieval Kingship. Edited by John Gillingham (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994) 154 pp. $29.95. Ending the Terror: The French Revolution after Robespierre. By Bronislaw Baczko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 269 pp. $59.95/£37.50 cloth. Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision. By Pierre Hadot, translated by Michael Chase (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) xiii + 138 pp. $28.75/£19.95 cloth. Resistance Against the Third Reich 1933–1990. Edited by Michael Geyer and John W. Boyer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994) 357 pp. $39.95 cloth, $15.95 paper. The Return of the Armadas: The Last Years of the Elizabethan War Against Spain 1595–1603. By R. B. Wernham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) xiv + 452 pp. £45.00 cloth. Aesthetic Judgment and the Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant. By Dieter Henrich. Stanford Series in Philosophy, Studies in Kant and German Idealism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994) x + 99 pp. Defining the Common Good. Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth‐Century Britain. By Peter N. Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) xii + 472 pp. £45.00/$69.95 cloth. Medieval Lives: Eight Charismatic Men and Women in the Middle Ages. By Normal F. Cantor (New York: HarperCollins, 1994) $23.00. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. By Bonnelyn Young Kunze (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994) xix + 327 pp. $39.50. A. D. Momigliano: Studies on Modern Scholarship. Ed. G. W. Bowersock and T. J. Cornell (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994) xxi +341 pp. $40.00 cloth, $17.00 paper. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. By Dena Goodman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994) xii +338 pp. $38.50 cloth. The History of the University of Oxford. Volume 8: The Twentieth Century. Edited by Brian Harrison (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) xxix + 872 pp. £50 cloth. High and Low Cultures: German Attempts at Mediation. Edited by Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand (Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994) viii + 140 pp. $22.50 cloth. Read My Desire: Lacan against the Historicists. By Joan Copjec (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994) x + 272 pp. $24.95 cloth. A Holy Commonwealth. By Richard Baxter, edited by William Lamont (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994) xxxi + 254 pp. £35.00/$59.95 cloth, £12.95/$18.95 paper. Post‐Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought. By John Gray (New York and London: Routledge, 1994) x + 358 pp. £35.00 cloth. Radical Theories: Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy. By Darrow Schecter (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994) 205 pp. £14.99 paper, £40.00 cloth. Thinking Out Loud: An Essay on the Relation between Thought and Language. By Christopher Gauker (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) x + 327 pp. $35.00 cloth. The Invention of the Modern Republic. Edited by Biancamaria Fontana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) xii + 234 pp. £35.00/ $54.95 cloth. Vindiciae, Contra Tyrannos: or, concerning the legitimate power of a prince over the people, and of the people over a prince. By Stephanus Junius Brutus, the Celt; edited and translated by George Garnett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) lxxxviii + 221 pp. £45.00/$74.95 cloth. Nature, the Exotic and the Science of French Colonialism. By Michael A. Osborne (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) 216 pp. $35.00 cloth. The Politics of the Picturesque: Literature, Landscapes and Aesthetics since 1770. Edited by Stephen Copley and Peter Garside (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), xiv + 303 pp. £35.00 cloth. La synagogue vide: Les sources marranes du spinozisme. By Gabriel Albiac (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994) 481 pp. FF 298 paper. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. By William Eamon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) xv + 490 pp. cloth. Ecrits autobiographiques 1856–1869. By Friedrich Nietzsche. Translation and notes by Marc Crépon. Fatum et histoire, 1862. Liberté de la volonté et fatum, 1862. Translation by Max Marcuzzi, with a study on Amitié, lecture et écriture by Marc Crépon (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994) 234 pp. FF 188. In the Eye's Mind: Vision and the Helmholtz‐Hering Controversy. By R. Steven Turner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) xiv + 338 pp. $49.50/£37.50 cloth. Memoir of a Victorian Woman: Reflections of Louise Creighton, 1850–1936. Edited by James Thayne Covert (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994) xvi + 187 pp. $29.95 cloth. From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union. By Minxin Pei (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994) 253 pp. $39.95 cloth. What is Europe? Aspects of European Diversity. Edited by Monica Shelley and Margaret Winck (Milton Keynes and London: Open University and Routledge, 1995). Law and Citizenship in Early Modern France. By Charlotte C. Wells (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995) xviii +198 pp. $45.00 Twentieth‐Century Dictatorships: The Ideological One‐Party States. By Paul Brooker (New York New York University Press, 1995) 311 pp. $40.00 Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: New Interdisciplinary Essays. Edited by Stephen Copley and Kathryn Sutherland Texts in Culture Series (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), xiii + 199 pp. + index $19.95 paper, $49.95 cloth. Austrian Exodus: The Creative Achievements of Refugees from National Socialism. Edited by Edward Timms and Ritchie Robertson. Austrian Studies volume 6 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), xv + 222 pp. £35.00 cloth. Politics and the Parlement of Paris under Louis XV, 1754–1774. By Julian Swann (Cambridge‐Cambridge University Press, 1995) x + 380 pp. £$19.95/$29.95 paper, £45.00/$69.95 cloth. What Future for the State? In Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Spring 1995, xxiv + 231 pp. US $7.95, Canada $10.35. Envisioning America: English Plans for the Colonization of North America, 1580–1640. Edited by Peter C. Mancall. Bedford Series in History and Culture (Boston and New York: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1995) x +182 pp. $35.00 cloth. Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Edited by Peter F. Sugar and Ivo John Lederer (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994) xiii + 465 pp. $25.00 paper. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. By Larry Wolff (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994) xii + 419 pp. $35.00 cloth. Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Calvin's Exegesis of Job from Medieval and Modern Perspectives. By Susan E. Schreiner (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994) ix + 264 pp. $41.50/£28.75 cloth. The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. By Pamela H. Smith (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) ix + 308 pp. $45.00/£30.00 cloth. Weber, Political Writings. Edited by P. Lassman and R. Spiers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) xxxi + 390 pp. £27.95/$49.95 cloth, £10.95/$ 14.95 paper. The Great Arnauld and Some of His Philosophical Correspondents. Edited by Elmar J. Kremer (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) vii + 249 pp. $65.00 cloth. Schopenhauer. By Christopher Janaway (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 113 pp. £5.99. The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry. By H. Floris Cohen (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994) xviii + 662 pp. $75.00/£59.95 cloth, $26.95/£21.50 paper. Going to the Wars: The Experience of the British Civil Wars, 1638–1651. By Charles Carlton (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), xii + 428 pp. £12.99 paper. The Emergence of Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century: A Privileged Moment in the History of England, Scotland and France. By Marvin B. Becker (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) xxiii + 164 pp.

Iris Murdoch believes that unselfing is required for virtue, as it takes us out of our egoistic preoccupations, and connects us to the Good in the world. Love is a form of unselfing, illustrating how close attention to another, and the way they really are, again, takes us out of a narrow focus on the self. Though this view of love runs counter to a view that those in love often overlook flaws in their loved ones, or at least down-play them, I argue that it is compatible with Murdoch's view that love can overlook some flaws, ones that do not speak to the loved one's true self. Unselfing requires that we don't engage in selfish delusion, but a softer view of our loved ones is permitted.

Peter Singer is well known as an ethicist who has contributed much to current debates in ethics and public policy. He has published on topics ranging from vegetarianism to famine relief to bioethics, always with something interesting to say, and often with something provocative as well. How Are We to Live? adds to Singer’s work in the area of applied, or practical, ethics. This book is not as deeply challenging as some of Singer’s earlier work. However, it is not intended for an audience composed exclusively of professional philosophers. It is written for people who feel that ethics doesn’t speak to the concern of living a full and fruitful life, who believe that ethics, at best, is too narrow to guide us in a wide spectrum of decisions, and, at worst, is for “suckers.” This sentiment is one that professional ethicists encounter all too frequently. Singer’s book does a splendid job of addressing these sorts of concerns. He does so with a light touch, without being too moralistic. It is easy to read, engaging, and will appeal to a wide audience. Thus, the book accomplishes its goals admirably.

Normative Ethical theory underwent a period of refinement in some areas and proliferation in others during the 20th century. Theories prominent in the 19th century, such as Utilitarianism, underwent refinement in light of criticisms; other approaches, such as normative intuitionism and virtue ethics, were developed in new directions, ones that reflected the sophistication of analytical techniques developed by philosophers in the 20th century, particularly in ordinary language philosophy. The middle of the 20th century was marked by an interest in conceptual analysis and what could be revealed about our concepts in the analysis of ‘ordinary’ language appeals to those concepts. For example, Gilbert Ryle argued that the hope of clearing up our concepts via formalizing them was futile, and instead the task of philosophy was to clear up confusions present in the ordinary use of concepts, concepts employed by ordinary people as well as specialists in a given area. Normative ethicists in the very early part of the 20th century had not yet adopted a ‘scientizing’ attitude to philosophy. They believed, for example, that one could rely on intuition in formulating ethical theories.1 Theorists in the early part of the century were also optimistic about the prospects of systematizing normative ethics in a way that would be faithful to our common sense normative judgments. This began, largely, with a critical look at Utilitarianism.

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Franklin Miller1 make a convincing case for their claim that what is wrong about killing someone is that one is putting the person in a state of universal and irreversible disability. Thus, killing in and of itself is not an additional harm for a person who has been universally and irreversibly disabled. The implications for such a view are, as they note, quite wide-ranging. Given advances in medical technology, there are individuals being kept alive now who are universally and irreversibly disabled. Not only would death not be viewed as an additional harm, but it may also be the case that the organs of such individuals should be made available to save the lives of those who are not universally and irreversibly disabled. Given how Sinnott-Armstrong and Miller spell out what universal and irreversible mean, I am in broad …