It has a very good starting point for all those willing to start immersing themselves in the philosophy of ethics. Blackburn's normative thesis has some unique features that almost saved the book in my opinion, but framed as they were by a confused promise to set the public understanding of ethics free from the usual kind of misunderstandings and the failure to deliver on that promise (coupled with an apparent joy in that failure) leaves the book's whole project a mess of inconsistent philosophy.Ī good book but as it states in the title it is a very Short introduction. The middle of the book deals with normative ethics and does so in a similar, but slightly more acrid style.

So those expecting him to fairly represent his opponents, in a book aimed at those who are new to moral philosophy and likely to be swayed by his arguments, will be disappointed. Given his stated intention, one would expect him to opt for the explanation over condemnation, but no, he drops a normative thesis (tolerance, of course) into the relativist's mix and in so doing misrepresents not only the relativist's position, but her opponent's in the form of objectivism.īlackburn is, of course, a meta-ethical quasi-realist, whose semantic theory contains a realist element, but primarily maintains the expressivist thesis. His statement of moral relativism is what you would expect to find in media bites, not the works of a moral philosopher. His stated project is to dispel the myths regarding moral philosophy, but in this book he perpetuates them. The criticism goes not for his brevity, but to his innaccuracy in attempts to properly represent the threats to an objectivist ethics and as well the actual strengths of other moral cognitivisms. This book has vanquished my hopes in Blackburn's treatment of ethics. I found this book hardly ironic, as I find publishing such a poor written essay, ethically compromising at best. I would email my criticism to Simon Blackburn about this matter, but apparently, he wouldn't be reading my emails as he has shown to be avoidant about reading scientific literature that might look as though they do not meet his philosophical premises. Especially when most zoologists and animal experts show that ethics in most animals are comparable to humans and we are not that many ethicists in comparison. Also, I challenge the writer to show any respect full figure in science that directly or indirectly, we should act as our biological history, or other animals. I believe, when a scholar is expected to write a book with 'Very short Introduction' In its name and is published by Oxford University Press, the earlier mentioned scholar should at least write arguments against thesis he/she had read.Īny scholar (be they are student or professor) would know that Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, not just only not mention 'Humans should act egoistically because genes do' rather he emphasized that this just tells how genes function.

Think by Simon Blackburn