J. CLUTTERBUCK
LaFollette (2013)). This approach is likely to resonate with
many readers, particularly those concerned to embrace a theory
sensitive to a broader and ampler environmentalism than one
grounded in the good of our own species and nothing else be-
sides.
In “Moral Sciences”, as the study of modern philosophy has
long been called at Cambridge University, where I found my-
self studying during the 1960s, the field of ethics plays a
prominent role, as this name would suggest. At that time, the
study of practical applications of ethics was in abeyance, at
least in the Anglo-Saxon world, but, as Attfield explains, events
like the Vietnam War and concerns such as those of Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring (Carson, 1962) restored applied ethics to
the kind of centrality in ethics that it used to enjoy in the days
of Kant and of Mill. The ordinary general reader, through
looking at the interesting fourth chapter of this book on “Ap-
plied Ethics”, would discover a brief outline of how and why
ethics has again come to be understood as a practical as well as
a theoretical undertaking across the last four decades of the
twentieth century and the early decades of the twenty-first, and
in some measure as the kind of aid to practical decision-making
conjured up by phrases such as “Moral Sciences”. The chapter
covers six major areas: intergenerational and population ethics,
medical ethics, animal ethics, development ethics, environ-
mental ethics (see also Attfield, 2003), and the ethics of war.
(Business ethics is sadly omitted, although Attfield has written
on the ethics of work and employment elsewhere (Attfield,
2001)). This chapter in particular is accessible and easy for the
general reader to grasp and benefit from, even for those not
taking degrees in philosophy or ethics. However, a rather
greater commitment to the serious study of philosophy proper is
needed to deal with the detailed and rigorous analysis of con-
cepts and theories present in some of the other sections. But
nothing less is to be expected of students who have chosen to
study philosophy and for whose needs this book is designed.
Since the days of Socrates, philosophy has never been an easy
option, and this book reflects the challenges implicit in its study,
as well as a helping hand along the road to addressing those
challenges.
After treating Applied Ethics the focus moves on to Meta-
Ethics, and to cognitivism, realism and competing theories.
Some teachers and courses may prefer to skip this more chal-
lenging chapter. But in doing so they will miss much of the fun
of doing moral philosophy. For example, does language about
what ought to be done collapse when it fails to motivate, and
should it be replaced with ought-language which is less de-
manding? The section on “internalism” and “externalism” guide s
the reader past numerous pitfalls and man-traps and towards
some tenable answers, adopting elements of both of these op-
posed stances or positions, despite their apparently intractable
opposition. And this approach turns out to cohere with the ac-
count given in this chapter of what there is reason to do, and
why we ought to do what morality commends. Even meta-
ethics, it turns out, can prove rewarding.
The final chapter, which concerns issues surrounding Free
Will and Responsibility, is given a historical structure, enabling
the reader to discover how awareness of the problem of human
freedom first dawned, and later developed in recognizable ways
with a clear continuity from this ancient awareness right
through to the present. The first section returns us to Aristotle,
with his admirable analysis of deliberation and of choice, and
then to the Hellenistic philosophers Epicurus, who noticed the
problem just mentioned and attempted to solve it, and the Sto-
ics, who struggled against all-comers in their efforts to recon-
cile their ethics and their determinism. Subsequent sections
concern early modern debates involving Hobbes, Hume, Kant
and Thomas Reid, all seeking to understand how human free-
dom can co-habit with laws of nature, and then the debates of
the more recent period, when Darwinian evolution came on the
scene, and later quantum indeterminacy as well, and depict the
attempts of Patrick Nowell-Smith, to give a compatibilist inter-
pretation to “could have done otherwise”, well-rebutted, as
Attfield argues, by the counter-analysis of J.L. Austin. Com-
patibilism claims that belief in human freedom and determinism
are compatible, but is itself found to generate insuperable prob-
lems. The final section indicates implications of even more
recent thought, including Mary Midgley’s exposition (Midgley,
1994) of how mammalian evolution prepares the way for the
kind of contextually constrained freedom necessary for ethical
decision-making, and thus for the presuppositions of ethical
discourse.
What the Companion Website Adds
The book’s “companion website”
(http://philosophy.attfield.continuumbooks.com) includes en-
dorsements from leading philosophers, and resources for stu-
dents and their teachers. It is here in particular that students are
encouraged to do ethics for themselves. For every section there
are bullet-point summaries, sets of learning objectives and es-
say titles, together with related lists of reading. There are also
powerpoint presentations consisting of slides for the use of
instructors, once again one display for every section. (It would
be quite easy for a bilingual teacher to translate one or more of
these powerpoint displays into their other language; one lec-
turer in a Spanish-speaking country is currently using some of
these materials in this way. It is of course even easier for teach-
ers of English-speaking students to download and use the
powerpoints, if equipped with copies of the book for the sake of
the continuity that it offers and of the availability of the com-
plete argument therein.) For some chapters there are case stud-
ies, charts and, for the section on Aristotle, Multiple Choice
Questions. The various sections of the book and the website
could be used either separately or as part of longer courses, and
could be taken in various orders of succession, according to
local needs and syllabuses. Other books by Attfield, especially
Value, Obligation and Meta-Ethics, used in combination with
the same companion website, could be used to clarify issues
further (including challenging issues such as those of meta-
ethics), and to assist study and written work.
As I have contended above, some sections of this book are
perforce challenging ones. However, instructors who deploy the
resources of the companion website in their teaching, and in
particular its powerpoint displays, will discover how the book’s
themes can be encapsulated in nuggets of illuminating prose,
capable of grabbing the attention of students and inspiring them
to studying the text and some of the suggested further reading.
Taught in this way, even meta-ethics can come alive, and its
importance be recognized.
Conclusion
This book certainly includes some challenging sections, such
as those on meta-ethics, but its various chapters interlock well
into a textbook, eminently usable for a variety of academic
Open Access 529
