A TREATISE OF MORALITY

A writer offers a sweeping tour of the history of moral philosophy in this treatise.

Joy repeatedly reminds readers that questions of moral philosophy are notoriously difficult, or, as he puts it, “one hell of a matter to discuss.” In order to gain firmer ground, the author delves into the history of philosophical thought on moral topics, a wide-ranging consideration that refreshingly doesn’t limit itself to Western sources. Joy includes a discussion of Indian and Chinese thought; he also furnishes an intriguing analysis of unjustly neglected figures like the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. Along the way, the author delivers some rich details about the history of moral philosophy. He looks at the unfolding of this history as an evolution—he refers to it as “Morality’s Ladder”—that proceeds from societal deference to authoritative morality to rigorous empirical inquiry. But while Joy makes it clear that he advocates the substitution of philosophy (as traditionally conceived) for modern science as a means to understanding the character of moral life, he provides no searching reasons for this. He seems to believe the technological progress of science settles the issue. Moreover, the author’s contentions are rife with contradictions—he asserts, without evidence, that philosophy is based on “cooperation, mutual aid, and self-interest,” seemingly unaware of the tension among these. Joy concedes he is neither an expert nor even a student of philosophy, and this often shows—his very brief sketches of the great moral thinkers lack both depth and basic accuracy. (Hobbes does not reduce morality to “man’s taste.”) The author digresses to describe the basic elements of the brain, presumably to argue that moral philosophy requires neuroscience, but he never makes that case: “The moral of the story is, what the hell is really occurring when one makes a decision or makes a judgment?” In addition, Joy’s prose is often as circuitous as his analysis is uneven.

An ambitious but rambling discussion of moral philosophy.