Julia Driver

A Philosophy of Beauty: Shaftesbury on Nature, Virtue, and Art is an expert and deeply interesting exploration of the third Earl of Shaftesbury’s theory of beauty. Shaftesbury was an impressive figure, highly influential in his day, though eclipsed by later writers such as David Hume. Gill has done an excellent job of drawing out Shaftesbury’s views—looking not only at his publications but also at other manuscript materials such as Shaftesbury’s correspondence and diaries. I found Gill’s book informative and engaging, and I strongly recommend it to scholars who are interested in the sentimentalist project. One will come away not simply with a better understanding of Shaftesbury’s own views but with an appreciation of his influence and the way in which later scholarship was shaped by his work.Gill’s approach is semibiographical. He draws upon facts about Shaftesbury’s life to account for various features of his philosophical writings. This feature of the book contributed to the enjoyment I had in reading it. It was interesting to be able to see how Shaftesbury’s philosophy developed out of questions he was asking himself about how he ought to live. Shaftesbury had a strong sense of duty. He made many decisions over the course of his life that were centered on a desire to live up to family obligations and obligations to his country. He also had a more general sense that he should be doing what he could to improve the lives of other people. One might describe this as beneficence felt as a duty. For these reasons, Gill notes that it is very likely due to Shaftesbury’s ill-health that he decided to pursue philosophy. Otherwise, his strong sense of duty would have led him to take on more public-facing roles as a means of improving the lives of others.He felt that this task could only be accomplished if people actually read and took notice of his work. Gill argues that this is at least in part what led Shaftesbury to develop such a distinctive and flamboyant writing style. Shaftesbury’s major work in ethical theory was Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, published in 1711, and anyone taking a course on the British moralists would have read parts of the Characteristicks, particularly the sections on virtue, as those sections are the ones that quite obviously fit into the sentimentalist narrative on the nature of virtue and make for interesting comparisons with later writers on the same topic, Frances Hutcheson as well as Hume. But Shaftesbury’s other works which are important sources regarding his thoughts on beauty and virtue include The Moralists and An Inquiry concerning Virtue, both of which Gill makes extensive use of in his discussion of Shaftesbury’s considered views.Gill notes the many complaints about Shaftesbury’s writing style. Gill notes that Adam Smith, for example, viewed Shaftesbury as someone whose writing is a paradigm of stylistic failure, leading him “frequently into a dungeon of metaphorical obscurity” (Smith, quoted by Gill on p. 14). However, Shaftesbury had very well-considered views on aesthetics and on aesthetically valuable writing. I especially liked how Gill’s careful reading of both Shaftesbury and his critics is further illuminated by considering some of these works that are often ignored by philosophers working on the British moralists, such as Soliloquy; or, Advice to an Author, which Gill discusses in the fifth chapter.What do beauty, nature, and virtue have to do with each other? Those familiar with the sentimentalist projects of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries know that, for the sentimentalist, morality and aesthetics are closely connected if not identical. At bottom the idea is that virtue is a kind of moral beauty, analogous to the positive aesthetic characteristics we associate with natural objects and works of art. In the case of Shaftesbury himself, one of his more famous claims is that beauty and good are identical, “one and the same.” What Shaftesbury meant in this claim, as Gill notes, is that it is a life in pursuit of beauty that is the good life for human beings. Beauty comes in many forms, and in the first chapter of his book, Gill focuses on natural beauty. Some writers viewed nature as ugly and deformed. Some, like Locke, seemed to think that the value of the wilderness was entirely instrumental. One of Gill’s claims is that Shaftesbury was responsible for changing these attitudes toward nature. Shaftesbury saw beauty in wilderness landscapes. Gill argues that Shaftesbury was to some extent interested in natural beauty because it helped solve a problem that concerned him: there is a deeply emotional aspect to worship of God, and yet it is also the case that we ought to maintain our rationality—to the extent that even scripture should be subject to critical scrutiny. Our love of God is not threatened by rational inquiry. Nature and wilderness were created by God, and by using our rational capacities we can come to appreciate the beauty in even the most disgusting aspects of nature, such as excrement. Excrement is evidence of God’s beautiful design.There is also moral beauty. Moral beauty is extensively discussed in chapter 2 of Gill’s book. Moral beauty applies to our “mental children”—and by this Shaftesbury means features of our agency, such as our feelings, emotions, principles of action, determinations of the will, and so forth. These can be beautiful as well. We perceive this beauty via our moral sense, our sense of right and wrong, which arises out of our feeling of second-order sentiments about our first-order mental states or inclinations. Virtue involves being guided by these second-order sentiments.The second chapter lays out very quickly Shaftesbury’s views on virtue, but here Gill is mainly concerned with exploring a problem that bothered Shaftesbury on a personal level. Drawing on evidence from Shaftesbury’s diaries, as well his published works, Gill argues that we can see that he was very troubled by his failure to love humanity in general. He believed this to be a flaw. However, the failure to love humanity in general arose out of an understanding of the terrible things people do to each other. How can it be a flaw in one’s character to fail to love what is not worthy of love? Shaftesbury wants to show that we do possess fine qualities that warrant love. One prong of his argument is his criticism of Hobbesian egoism as bad moral psychology. Another prong appeals to our inherent sociality. Human beings have a strong desire to be with other human beings (this is an illustration of what Gill calls ‘the herding principle’). This desire underlies much prosocial behavior and demonstrates that moral beauty, or virtue, is certainly achievable by humans. However, if not properly cultivated it can lead to partiality; that is, it can lead to tribalism or caring more about some people than others. The underlying psychology appeals to the fact that we prefer to associate with those we are more in sympathy with. This leads us to exclude others, and even try to harm them. But our capacity to display moral beauty, to be virtuous, renders us the apt objects of love.In the third chapter Gill discusses art and artistic beauty, and this chapter serves as a prelude to the final two, which consider two different forms of artistic expression: painting and writing. Art is another way in which beauty is manifested in the world. Shaftesbury argued that art was an important part of the good human life, though as Gill notes he gave varying reasons for why this was the case. Sometimes he focused on the purely instrumental: appreciating a work of art can cause one to develop dispositions important to living a good human life, those dispositions properly instances of moral beauty. On this view, art would in principle be disposable at some point in a person’s development into a good human being. Once moral beauty is attained, one no longer needs to be spurred on through artistic appreciation. However, he sometimes argues that art is important in itself—that artistic beauty is an important component of the good life for its own sake, and not simply as a spur to moral development. Gill doesn’t believe that Shaftesbury can be made fully consistent on this issue, but he offers the following as the best charitable interpretation: appreciation of beauty is a final good, but moral beauty is a final good as well and is more significant. Thus, appreciation of beauty, while still a final good, should be sacrificed if it interferes with moral beauty.In the penultimate chapter, on painting, Gill focuses on Shaftesbury’s views regarding the category of art that is morally representational—that is, art that represents morally significant content. In this category he focuses on the genre of history painting—a prominent genre at the time Shaftesbury was writing, though not well represented in Britain at that time. Here he discusses an essay Shaftesbury wrote, A Notion of the Tablature, or Judgment of Hercules, in which Shaftesbury provides a description of a painting that he would later have painted by an Italian artist, Paolo de Matteis. Here, in going over the process of conceptualizing the painting that he would commission de Matteis to produce, various important features of composition are highlighted. But the important point of such painting is to convey a moral message. The choices that the artist makes should be guided by this norm. Gill writes that Shaftesbury believed that a well-executed history painting would be able to rouse virtue in its audience and discourage vice. Gill is doubtful. He also points out that Shaftesbury’s discussion of history painting highlights Shaftesbury’s “morally archaic” view of women. It is women who are often presented as spurs to vice in men.Writing, on Shaftesbury’s view, should also inspire one to virtue. Among those writers who fail in this task are the super speculative philosophers who mistakenly believe that abstruse philosophical speculations improve the lives of people. What they need to engage in, Shaftesbury writes, is soliloquy. Here we get an analogy with the exercise of moral agency. As a writer, one needs some critical distance, some critical “self-dissection,” to improve. The same for moral agents, who must subject their first-order mental states to critical scrutiny.In this book Gill has made a very powerful case for taking Shaftesbury’s work seriously beyond the standard topics of interest to the moral sentimentalists. Shaftesbury had a tremendous influence on many areas in philosophy—metaethics, virtue theory, aesthetics, and natural religion. Gill’s book does an excellent job of showing us how Shaftesbury’s philosophical thought permeated aspects of his day-to-day life and influenced more than the work of other, subsequent, philosophers. After reading this book I came away with a better understanding of Shaftesbury the human being, as well as Shaftesbury the philosopher.

In this remarkably accessible, concise, and engaging introduction to moral philosophy, Steven M. Cahn brings together a rich, balanced, and wide-ranging collection of fifty-two readings on ethical theory and contemporary moral issues. He has carefully edited all the articles to ensure that they will be exceptionally clear and understandable to undergraduate students. The selections are organized into three parts--Challenges to Morality, Moral Theories, and Moral Problems--providing instructors with flexibility in designing and teaching a variety of ethics courses. Each reading is followed by study questions." -- from Amazon.

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.

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. 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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.