Drag to reposition

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.

Political Writings. By Joseph Priestley, edited by Peter Miller 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 235 pp. $39.95 cloth. Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality. By Robert Pynsent 244 pp. $49.94/£25.00 cloth. Voltaire: Political Writings. Edited by David Williams 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 xii + 308 pp. $79.95 cloth; $29.95 paper. Guillaume le Taciturne. By Bernard Quilliet 654 pp. FF. 170. Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1880. By Anthony Grafton 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 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 331 pp., $43.25/£29.95 cloth. Berthe Morisot's Images of Women. By Anne Higonnet 311 pp. $19.95 paper. Innocence Lost. By Christopher Gowans, xiii + 257 pp., $45.00/£32.50 cloth. The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the Libro de buen amor. By John Dagenais xxiii + 278 pp. Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, Aesthetics. By Stephen K. White xx + 95 pp., $17.95 paper. Reason, Will and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics. Edited by John Cottingham 333 pp. Richard III: A Medieval Kingship. Edited by John Gillingham 154 pp. $29.95. Ending the Terror: The French Revolution after Robespierre. By Bronislaw Baczko 269 pp. $59.95/£37.50 cloth. Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision. By Pierre Hadot, translated by Michael Chase xiii + 138 pp. $28.75/£19.95 cloth. Resistance Against the Third Reich 1933–1990. Edited by Michael Geyer and John W. Boyer 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 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 x + 99 pp. Defining the Common Good. Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth‐Century Britain. By Peter N. Miller xii + 472 pp. £45.00/$69.95 cloth. Medieval Lives: Eight Charismatic Men and Women in the Middle Ages. By Normal F. Cantor $23.00. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. By Bonnelyn Young Kunze xix + 327 pp. $39.50. A. D. Momigliano: Studies on Modern Scholarship. Ed. G. W. Bowersock and T. J. Cornell xxi +341 pp. $40.00 cloth, $17.00 paper. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. By Dena Goodman xii +338 pp. $38.50 cloth. The History of the University of Oxford. Volume 8: The Twentieth Century. Edited by Brian Harrison xxix + 872 pp. £50 cloth. High and Low Cultures: German Attempts at Mediation. Edited by Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand viii + 140 pp. $22.50 cloth. Read My Desire: Lacan against the Historicists. By Joan Copjec x + 272 pp. $24.95 cloth. A Holy Commonwealth. By Richard Baxter, edited by William Lamont xxxi + 254 pp. £35.00/$59.95 cloth, £12.95/$18.95 paper. Post‐Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought. By John Gray x + 358 pp. £35.00 cloth. Radical Theories: Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy. By Darrow Schecter 205 pp. £14.99 paper, £40.00 cloth. Thinking Out Loud: An Essay on the Relation between Thought and Language. By Christopher Gauker x + 327 pp. $35.00 cloth. The Invention of the Modern Republic. Edited by Biancamaria Fontana 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 lxxxviii + 221 pp. £45.00/$74.95 cloth. Nature, the Exotic and the Science of French Colonialism. By Michael A. Osborne 216 pp. $35.00 cloth. The Politics of the Picturesque: Literature, Landscapes and Aesthetics since 1770. Edited by Stephen Copley and Peter Garside, xiv + 303 pp. £35.00 cloth. La synagogue vide: Les sources marranes du spinozisme. By Gabriel Albiac 481 pp. FF 298 paper. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. By William Eamon 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 234 pp. FF 188. In the Eye's Mind: Vision and the Helmholtz‐Hering Controversy. By R. Steven Turner xiv + 338 pp. $49.50/£37.50 cloth. Memoir of a Victorian Woman: Reflections of Louise Creighton, 1850–1936. Edited by James Thayne Covert xvi + 187 pp. $29.95 cloth. From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union. By Minxin Pei 253 pp. $39.95 cloth. What is Europe? Aspects of European Diversity. Edited by Monica Shelley and Margaret Winck. Law and Citizenship in Early Modern France. By Charlotte C. Wells xviii +198 pp. $45.00 Twentieth‐Century Dictatorships: The Ideological One‐Party States. By Paul Brooker 311 pp. $40.00 Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: New Interdisciplinary Essays. Edited by Stephen Copley and Kathryn Sutherland Texts in Culture Series, 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, xv + 222 pp. £35.00 cloth. Politics and the Parlement of Paris under Louis XV, 1754–1774. By Julian Swann 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 x +182 pp. $35.00 cloth. Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Edited by Peter F. Sugar and Ivo John Lederer xiii + 465 pp. $25.00 paper. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. By Larry Wolff 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 ix + 264 pp. $41.50/£28.75 cloth. The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. By Pamela H. Smith ix + 308 pp. $45.00/£30.00 cloth. Weber, Political Writings. Edited by P. Lassman and R. Spiers 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 vii + 249 pp. $65.00 cloth. Schopenhauer. By Christopher Janaway 113 pp. £5.99. The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry. By H. Floris Cohen 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, 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 xxiii + 164 pp.

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.

Political Writings. By Joseph Priestley, edited by Peter Miller 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 235 pp. $39.95 cloth. Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality. By Robert Pynsent 244 pp. $49.94/£25.00 cloth. Voltaire: Political Writings. Edited by David Williams 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 xii + 308 pp. $79.95 cloth; $29.95 paper. Guillaume le Taciturne. By Bernard Quilliet 654 pp. FF. 170. Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450–1880. By Anthony Grafton 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 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 331 pp., $43.25/£29.95 cloth. Berthe Morisot's Images of Women. By Anne Higonnet 311 pp. $19.95 paper. Innocence Lost. By Christopher Gowans, xiii + 257 pp., $45.00/£32.50 cloth. The Ethics of Reading in Manuscript Culture: Glossing the Libro de buen amor. By John Dagenais xxiii + 278 pp. Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, Aesthetics. By Stephen K. White xx + 95 pp., $17.95 paper. Reason, Will and Sensation: Studies in Descartes's Metaphysics. Edited by John Cottingham 333 pp. Richard III: A Medieval Kingship. Edited by John Gillingham 154 pp. $29.95. Ending the Terror: The French Revolution after Robespierre. By Bronislaw Baczko 269 pp. $59.95/£37.50 cloth. Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision. By Pierre Hadot, translated by Michael Chase xiii + 138 pp. $28.75/£19.95 cloth. Resistance Against the Third Reich 1933–1990. Edited by Michael Geyer and John W. Boyer 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 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 x + 99 pp. Defining the Common Good. Empire, Religion and Philosophy in Eighteenth‐Century Britain. By Peter N. Miller xii + 472 pp. £45.00/$69.95 cloth. Medieval Lives: Eight Charismatic Men and Women in the Middle Ages. By Normal F. Cantor $23.00. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. By Bonnelyn Young Kunze xix + 327 pp. $39.50. A. D. Momigliano: Studies on Modern Scholarship. Ed. G. W. Bowersock and T. J. Cornell xxi +341 pp. $40.00 cloth, $17.00 paper. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. By Dena Goodman xii +338 pp. $38.50 cloth. The History of the University of Oxford. Volume 8: The Twentieth Century. Edited by Brian Harrison xxix + 872 pp. £50 cloth. High and Low Cultures: German Attempts at Mediation. Edited by Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand viii + 140 pp. $22.50 cloth. Read My Desire: Lacan against the Historicists. By Joan Copjec x + 272 pp. $24.95 cloth. A Holy Commonwealth. By Richard Baxter, edited by William Lamont xxxi + 254 pp. £35.00/$59.95 cloth, £12.95/$18.95 paper. Post‐Liberalism: Studies in Political Thought. By John Gray x + 358 pp. £35.00 cloth. Radical Theories: Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy. By Darrow Schecter 205 pp. £14.99 paper, £40.00 cloth. Thinking Out Loud: An Essay on the Relation between Thought and Language. By Christopher Gauker x + 327 pp. $35.00 cloth. The Invention of the Modern Republic. Edited by Biancamaria Fontana 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 lxxxviii + 221 pp. £45.00/$74.95 cloth. Nature, the Exotic and the Science of French Colonialism. By Michael A. Osborne 216 pp. $35.00 cloth. The Politics of the Picturesque: Literature, Landscapes and Aesthetics since 1770. Edited by Stephen Copley and Peter Garside, xiv + 303 pp. £35.00 cloth. La synagogue vide: Les sources marranes du spinozisme. By Gabriel Albiac 481 pp. FF 298 paper. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. By William Eamon 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 234 pp. FF 188. In the Eye's Mind: Vision and the Helmholtz‐Hering Controversy. By R. Steven Turner xiv + 338 pp. $49.50/£37.50 cloth. Memoir of a Victorian Woman: Reflections of Louise Creighton, 1850–1936. Edited by James Thayne Covert xvi + 187 pp. $29.95 cloth. From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union. By Minxin Pei 253 pp. $39.95 cloth. What is Europe? Aspects of European Diversity. Edited by Monica Shelley and Margaret Winck. Law and Citizenship in Early Modern France. By Charlotte C. Wells xviii +198 pp. $45.00 Twentieth‐Century Dictatorships: The Ideological One‐Party States. By Paul Brooker 311 pp. $40.00 Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: New Interdisciplinary Essays. Edited by Stephen Copley and Kathryn Sutherland Texts in Culture Series, 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, xv + 222 pp. £35.00 cloth. Politics and the Parlement of Paris under Louis XV, 1754–1774. By Julian Swann 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 x +182 pp. $35.00 cloth. Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Edited by Peter F. Sugar and Ivo John Lederer xiii + 465 pp. $25.00 paper. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment. By Larry Wolff 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 ix + 264 pp. $41.50/£28.75 cloth. The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire. By Pamela H. Smith ix + 308 pp. $45.00/£30.00 cloth. Weber, Political Writings. Edited by P. Lassman and R. Spiers 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 vii + 249 pp. $65.00 cloth. Schopenhauer. By Christopher Janaway 113 pp. £5.99. The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry. By H. Floris Cohen 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, 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 xxiii + 164 pp.

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 …

abstract In this paper moralism is defined as the illicit use of moral considerations. Three different varieties of moralism are then discussed — moral absolutism, excessive standards and demandingness, and presenting non‐moral considerations as moral ones. Both individuals and theories can be regarded as moralistic in some of these senses. Indeed, some critics of consequentialism have regarded that theory as moralistic. The author then describes the problems associated with each sense of ‘moralism’ and how casuistry evolved to try to deal with some of these problems. The author also defends consequentialism against one charge of moralism [1].

This paper focuses on an underappreciated issue that dreams raise for moral evaluation: is immorality possible in dreams? The evaluatiotial internalist is committed to answering ‘yes.’ This is because the internalist account of moral evaluation holds that the moral quality of a person's actions, what a person does, her agency in any given case is completely determined by factors that are internal to that agency, such as the person's motives and/or intentions. Actual production of either good or bad effects is completely irrelevant to the moral evaluation of that agency. Since agency can be expressed in a dream, the internalist is committed to dream immorality. Some may take this as a reductio of evaluational internalism, but whether or not this is the case the issue reveals what such a theory is committed to. In this paper I explore the significance of dreams to morality, and argue that the absurdity of dream immorality supports an account of moral evaluation with an externalist component, rather than a purely internalist account of moral evaluation.