Craig Taylor, Moralism: A Study of a Vice (Durham: Acumen, 2012). xi + 187, price £11.99 (original) (raw)

2013, Philosophical Investigations

Rupert Read, UEA This is an important book on an important subject.Taylor's charming and delicate prose guides the reader carefully and often delightfully through difficult waters: the "moral dilemmas," if that is the right phrase (Taylor suggests good reasons why in fact it isn't; this is one of many virtues of his book), facing foreign ministers, journalists, artists, reality-show participants, philosophers, Lord Jim, Dostoevsky's "Idiot," and in fact all of us, everyone. There has never, in this reviewer's opinion, been a better critique of "moralism" than this book. Taylor argues that moralism is a vice, and an important and dangerous vice. His argument is convincing, and by and large (though not alwayssee below), he himself manages beautifully to avoid moralising, in the process. (This might seem obvious/natural/easy; but in fact my experience is that those who are against moralism are quite often the worst-the most persistent-moralisers of all. How easy it is, how appealing, to self-righteously moralise. .. against moralism!) Having said that, there remain some areas that Moralism opens up for debate that are by no means settled by it, and from which, in my view, an alternative (or at least a complementary) track opens up, towards a stance rather different from Taylor's. I propose to spend most of this review focusing on those areas and on that alternative track. Before doing so, let me make a few other, specific, philosophical points that arise in relation to Taylor's book, and that will, I think, interest readers of Philosophical Investigations: (1) On p. 147, Taylor criticises an SUV-driver with a "No blood for oil" bumper-sticker. An easy criticism to make, but perhaps too easy.There seems a tacit danger at this of Taylor descending into moralism here towards individuals. For: It is a perfectly legitimate move for an individual to make under many circumstances to say that they would do