Book Reviews 1. ETHICS IN THE AGE OF GENETIC ENGINEERING

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1 Book Reviews MICHAEL J. SANDEL, The Case Against Perfection. Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. Cambridge (Mass.) & London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, pp. 1. ETHICS IN THE AGE OF GENETIC ENGINEERING Biomedical science and the ongoing genetic revolution confront us with completely new ethical questions, for example the questions related to IVF and stem-cell research, discussed at the end of Sandel s new book, The Case Against Perfection, but also the larger and more formidable questions discussed in the bulk of the book related to the new eugenics which seems to be awaiting us. Sandel s new essay deserves the full attention not only of academics, but also of policy makers and the general public. Sandel situates the discussion at the right level; the level where ethical questions are no longer divorced from the most fundamental questions: What is it to be human; what is or should be our relation to life, to nature? It is not possible to discuss the new ethical problems without situating genetic engineering in a broader context, the context of contemporary society as dominated by consumerism and the politics of recognition. The fundamental human desire for recognition is no longer operating in fixed traditional channels: it seeks implementation via the diversity of symbolic goods offered in the market. This situation seemingly enables new products and techniques for the treatment of diseases (and now also for genetic disorders) invariably to become instruments for improvement and consumer choice. Sandel specifically discusses the problem of enhancement in sports and in procreation. This continuous transgression from the context of healing into the context of enhancement leads to a new form of eugenics: no longer forced upon people from above, but decided individually from below, on the basis of the freedom of the consumer seeking to distinguish himself or herself under the pressure of media and market. According to Sandel, this drive towards enhancement betrays a fundamental attitude present in contemporary culture: a Promethean aspiration towards perfection. It is clear from the title of the book that Sandel thinks this is a bad idea. From the ethical point of view, his position is sharply expressed in the following words: [T]he moral stakes in the enhancement debate are not fully captured by the familiar categories of autonomy and rights, on the one hand, and the ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ETHICS NETWORK 14, no. 2 (2007): by European Centre for Ethics, K.U.Leuven. All rights reserved. doi: /EP

2 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES JUNE 2007 calculation of costs and benefits, on the other (96). In other words, traditional analytical moral philosophy is incapable of seriously engaging with the new problems. It is indeed customary for philosophers (especially analytic philosophers) to try to decide ethical questions on the basis of principles like autonomy (usually in combination with the no-harm principle and considerations concerning justice) or in consequentialist terms. Sandel shows that on the basis of such principles and reasoning, the deep ethical worries with respect to enhancement and eugenics cannot be taken care of. What is at stake are not primarily dangers for the individual, society, or the human species, but more fundamental issues. In his discussion of bionic athletes, Sandel shows how certain forms of enhancement are incompatible with the very telos and the relevant virtues of sports as a meaningful human activity. In his discussion of designer children, he shows how designing parents betray something which is essential to parenthood, what he calls openness to the unbidden. He demonstrates that the problem here is not so much the possible restriction of children s autonomy, but a form of excessive, selfdefeating activism. In general (t)he problem with eugenics and genetic engineering is that they represent the one-sided triumph of wilfulness over giftedness, of dominion over reverence, of molding over beholding (85). Behind people s worries with the new developments are deep questions about what it is to be human, about our relation with nature, about the very nature of ethics or morals. According to Sandel, very little has been done philosophically concerning these deeper issues. Hannah Arendt s concept of natality (which Sandel found referred to in Habermas) is invoked to express something Sandel takes to be essential in human beings: a sense of indebtedness to reality which is incompatible with the Promethean activism incapable of accepting the given. According to Sandel, the sense of indebtedness usually has a religious origin, but this need not be so. It can perfectly go together with a kind of reverence towards nature of which we are a part. Other deep problems which are touched upon concern the intrinsic link between human freedom and contingency. That as individuals and in our life we are subject to all kind of lotteries, including the genetic lottery, is not just a limitation; it is probably also the possibility condition for the most fundamental desire, the desire for happiness. Fulfilment of this desire is indeed not possible on the basis (only) of control of things and people around us. We need to be able to experience what we most want as a gift, as grace, when we receive it. One could add that the values in terms of which we desire fulfilment are ultimately not things which we create ex nihilo, or which in all respects are the product of our decision. Freedom requires that the values we pursue are transcendent to our will (but of course not forced upon our will). According to Sandel, the genetic revolution has an eroding influence on three key features in our moral landscape: humility (and, one could add, gratitude with respect to the gifts for which we are indebted), responsibility (which is not so much eroded, but exponentially increased and thereby jeopardized), and even solidarity. These three features even hang together: A lively sense of the contingency of our gifts an awareness that none of us is wholly responsible for his or her success saves a meritocratic society from sliding into the 208

3 BOOK REVIEWS smug assumption that success is the crown of virtue, that the rich are rich because they are more deserving than the poor (91). In so-called continental philosophy much more work on these deep issues has been done than Sandel suggests. Arendt s concept of natality clearly refers to Heidegger s notion of Geworfenheit, to name but one example. Also notions like contingency and freedom, and their interconnection, have been the subject of serious investigation. Unfortunately, these investigations very often result in academic exercises unreadable even for the learned public. A real effort is necessary to translate these insights so that they can become fruitful for the broad ethical discussion mentioned here. Bringing across the importance of the relevant concepts and insights may even require to touch and raise the appropriate sensibilities via the use of literature and essayistic work. (A good example in this respect, is the study of the notion of reverence in Paul Woodruff s Reverence. Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, Oxford University Press, 2001). Anyway, Sandel s work introduces us to important questions concerning the relationship between moral decision making and philosophy. If, ultimately, moral decision making has to do with a sensitivity to fundamental aspects of human living, such as gratitude for giftedness, reverence, basic trust, etc., then the task of philosophy cannot simply be to find decisive arguments settling matters in one way or the other. Its major task, especially in a cultural framework characterized by activism and consequentialist attitudes, will be difficult: to spell out comprehensibly what is behind the largely mute worries of ordinary people especially in bio-ethical questions. This spelling out is a kind of hermeneutics, rather than an argumentation. The force of the understanding thus gained with respect to ethical decisions can only come from the basic sensibility and attitudes themselves. Insights such as these go against the grain of most bioethical reflections and interventions today. 2. STEM CELL ETHICS About one fifth of Sandel s book is an epilogue entitled: Embryo Ethics: The Stem Cell Debate. It is like an attempt to apply the general insights gained before to a concrete case. In the epilogue, Sandel discusses moral arguments for and against the use of embryos for medical research concerning genetically determined diseases. He rejects the position (taken also by some Leuven bio-ethicists) that research on IVF spare embryos is allowed, but not the creation of embryos specifically for research. He thinks that [t]he moral argument for research cloning and for stem cell research on leftover embryos stand or fall together (111). The argument of the proponents is that if excess embryos will eventually be discarded anyway, why should we not use them (with donor consent, of course) for potentially lifesaving research? But this is of course morally acceptable only if the question of the moral status of the embryo is already decided. If the moral status 209

4 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES JUNE 2007 of the embryo is such that it excludes use leading to destruction, then this is also the case for leftover embryos. They shouldn t have been created in the first place and the whole practice of treating infertility by IVF is to be firmly rejected. If leftover embryos can be used for research, this implies that their moral status is not such that it cannot be overridden in function of their use for potentially lifesaving medical research. But then why not allow this also for embryos created specifically for research purposes? Fetuses also could be used for much needed research, yet their moral status excludes that their life is put in balance with the value they can have in medical research. Some things you simply do not do, notwithstanding major benefits otherwise. What then is the moral status of an embryo? Those who think it is the same as that of a baby or a human person cannot but think that the use of embryos for research is murder. Many religious people, who believe that embryos have a soul, think like this. Sandel notices that this has consequences which are hard to accept also for the believers themselves: for example, that extracting stem cells is as abhorrent as harvesting organs from a baby to save other people s lives. (Or that very early abortion is as morally bad as very late abortion.) In this context he argues that even though there is no non-arbitrary moment in the course of human development when personhood (and inviolability) sets in, this doesn t necessarily imply that a blastocyst (embryo) has the same status as a baby. It could be argued further that if religious people advocate inviolability for embryos because of their having a soul, one can still wonder why the presence of a soul would make such a difference on its own. Suppose the soul is taken to be a reality of a certain exquisite, spiritual kind. Why should spiritual reality have such importance? The strange or complicated nature of something is not enough; it obtains its moral status only within a certain viewpoint, the viewpoint of respect which is not based on scientific or quasi-scientific insights in kinds of nature or complexity. Only within the viewpoint of respect can certain (categories of) entities be seen as really inviolable, however insignificant ( only a blastocyst or a fetus) they may seem. If this is compatible with Sandel s viewpoint, as I suppose it is (see p. 125), then of course it cannot be the real presence of a soul, nor the embryo s physical potentiality of development into a full human being, which are deciding factors determining the moral status of the embryo. But then it also doesn t follow from the fact that it is only a blastocyst (whether especially created, or leftover), that its use is less problematic than say the use of a fetus. The real context of debate is not physics or metaphysics, but the moral practice of respecting human beings even before they are born and after they have died. It is within this context that the question of the respect appropriate to the embryo must be decided. Sandel rightly draws our attention to certain practices which are closely related to or expressive of moral respect: name giving, and rituals like burial. Denying a person his or her name (as in Nazi concentration camps), or denying burial, are serious moral wrongdoings. Fetuses are not given a name and are not properly buried. The degrees of absence or presence of these practices may be indications of the relative respect paid or to be paid. Even though aborted fetuses are not properly buried, it is wrong to dispose 210

5 BOOK REVIEWS of them as simply waste. Sometimes parents ask for fetuses to be buried. That people find the creation of embryos specifically for research too instrumentalist an attitude, notwithstanding possible advantages in the fight against terrible diseases, does not seem to me completely incomprehensible. After all, in Sandel s own terminology, although an embryo is only a blastocyst, it is not just material, or reserve parts, it is and should be seen in the words of Sandel himself as the mystery of the first stirrings of human life (127). Mystery is not to be taken here in the sense of too complex (yet) for our understanding, or beyond the scope of scientific understanding, but in the sense in which that which we (already) perfectly comprehend, can (still) be seen as an object of awe and great significance, and as untouchable. Of course embryos are a very small clustering of cells, hardly noticeable except under a microscope. Yet, if a woman knows she is pregnant, even at a very early stage she already thinks of the embryo as her child-to-be, as a mystery. If she loses her child, there will be a process of mourning. Supposing we do come to accept the use of embryos for research, should there not be some sort of ritual way to appease the little ghosts, as the Japanese have it in the Hasedera-temple at Kamakura for the huge number of aborted children? Sandel discusses the question whether embryo research is not the beginning of a slippery slope towards embryo farms, commodification of zygotes, etc. Is this, so he asks himself, another episode in the erosion of our human sensibility (128)? He finds this much too alarmist and pleads for a reasonable attitude: allowing leftover or created embryos to be used for research in the service of health (and not enhancement), but in combination with regulations concerning fertility clinics, restrictions on reproductive cloning, on the commodification of human tissues, etc. He is undoubtedly right in his plea for reasonableness. Yet, as in the case of abortion, it may be extremely important that there are voices in society warning against the dangers that human dignity, even before birth and after death, is effectively eroded by the blindness having to do with the activist pursuit of comfort, of gain, of fame (through research). It would be a mistake to accuse these voices automatically of unreasonableness and fanaticism. On the contrary, they should be carefully listened to, so as to be sure that we have not become half blind for the ethical truth, for the mystery of human life, even before birth. As Sandel says, the genomic revolution confronts us with questions largely lost from view in the modern world questions about the moral status of nature, and about the proper stance of human beings towards the given world. Since these questions verge on theology, modern philosophers and political scientists tend to shrink from them. But our new powers of biotechnology make them unavoidable (9-10). Ethics is supposed to lag far behind in development if compared to science and technology. This book shows that what is needed to close the gap is not a more professional and technical bioethics, but a renewed attention to the real depth behind our ethical problems. Sandel s book, which is a real pleasure to read both because of its style and because of its content, is the sort of philosophy we badly need today. Herman De Dijn K.U.Leuven 211

6 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES JUNE 2007 SANDRA WADDOCK and CHARLES BODWELL, Total Responsibility Management. The Manual. Sheffield: Greenleaf, pp. The very title of this little book frightens me. The combination of these three terms and the brief but firm The Manual sends a chill down to the bone of every philosopher. Yet, curiosity gets the better of me. Does total responsibility refer to responsible for everything (A)? Or is it that total management refers to to be in complete control (B)? Or is even a third meaning intended, i.e., a combination of both? As in complete control of everything (C)? Or is it rather a mixture of both meanings that flickers in the discourse of this manual (D)? Alternative (A) prompts us to ask the evident question whether the responsibility of corporations indeed, this is a manual on corporate ethics is clearly delineated. Alternative (B) raises the question whether and which responsibility is left to the discretion by the individual officer that is employed by the corporation. What to think about alternatives (C) and (D) will follow from what the manual has to offer on the former two. Now, the delineation of responsibility is essential for any actor involved in societal activity. Especially corporate officers who hold strategic or cultural positions should keep a close eye on shifting opinions and analyse evolving discourses on corporate responsibility (and the related terms such as sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, 3P, corporate citizenship, and so on), because the very functioning and existence of corporations is on the defence through multiple mechanisms. One of those mechanisms, and perhaps not the least pernicious, is the idle and vain projection of corporate responsibility (CR) the various and diverging interpretations attached to the symbolic initialism that abounds in journalistic and academic discourses and pamphleteering by advocacy groups alike are not all innocuous. Officers that occupy the philosophical positions in the corporation should also be aware of the concepts of causality that may lay behind some interpretations of CR. In the wake of the concept of globalisation, i.e., the image of ever more interdependent economies, come some dubious images of causality and hence responsibility. For instance, John Elkington, the guru that infected mankind with the 3P-meme (People, Planet, Profit!) and maintains that the corporation has a triple bottom line instead of one, also teaches us the butterfly effect: A butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, the resulting turbulence gradually building to trigger a cascade of effects, including fierce storms in Texas, or along the USA s seaboard. the butterfly effect in which small actions lead to mega-impacts (Elkington, The Chrysalis Economy, 2001, xix). Mega-causality! Applied to corporate action: if the CEO were to close his garage door a little too forcefully perhaps because he is being harassed by hedge funds he might cause the UK to flood. Thus, his CR is neither to be taken lightly nor does it end somewhere near. And neither is it clearly delineated. Thus, the corporate officer is faced with tremendous responsibilities and most of them need urgent response if not, planet earth will perish soon. In this train of reasoning-feeling-waving, everybody becomes easily responsible for everything. What does the TRM-manual teaches us on this? Without any hesitation or delay, 212

7 BOOK REVIEWS the authors take an utilitarian turn: TRM is about managing stakeholders, i.e., parties that are affected by or are able to effect the companies activities, in order to attain corporate objectives more smoothly, efficiently, and quickly and with the lesser harm. So, TRM essentially comes down to the management of relationships to mitigate business risks. This makes TRM an open-ended endeavour since new organisations that develop an interest in the corporation might always pop up. So, Total is a transcendental and not a merely empirical concept: total implies complete and will therefore never be reached even if the corporation would be destined for eternity. At best, Total can be approached asymptotically. We find the same figure also in the Total Quality Management philosophy (TQM). This ethical discipline, too, is always improving without ever reaching a point of perfection, a point of perfect Quality, the point of Quality. TQM too holds a (local) consensus view of truth: Quality is what the customer perceives as quality perception is reality and therefore reality is forever and ever changing. Both TQM and TRM promise to instigate a culture of innovation within the corporation. The authors of the manual acknowledge overtly that their approach to CR is isomorphic with the paradigm of TQM (14). Later on, they apply Denning s continuous algorithmic pattern of practice on Responsibility (p.139) a corporation that has TQM firmly embedded in its culture, practices, and processes will have no problems in installing the higher TRM. Indeed, both ethical disciplines share a lot of essentials besides infinitism and consensualism. Those essentials pertain to the core culture of the corporation: the artificial establishing of the conditions of Machtsfreie Dialog (as in Habermas) as a pocket within the organisation; the ambition of the holistic perspective that takes into account all consequences; the transversal approach rather than the hierarchic; the tendency to measure; the implication of the customer s perception as the first and final point of reference; and so on: the indefinite promise of innovation. For a more extensive treatment of the interrelationship between different genres of corporate ethics, I refer to my analysis of the relations between the various ethical disciplines within the corporation (Jos Leys and Dirk Coeckelbergh, Ontstaan en soorten van bedrijfsethiek een functionalistisch perspectief, in: Ethiek en Maatschappij, 7: 2 (June 2004), 16-33). Given those profound likenesses, it is not surprising that the manual deploys the same technique for selling TRM to management as is often used when selling TQM: your are managing your Quality (your Responsibility) already; even implicit or tacit decision not to pay it any attention in the management processes, is a managerial decision on QM, albeit arguably not the best. In the same vain, it means that managers should take responsibility of Responsibility they do anyway, whether they are consciously responsible for Responsibility or not. As a matter of fact, managerial officers are quite defenceless against the argument. Luckily, TRM The Manual provides them immediately with a course of action: obtaining all those labels that twinkle in the discourses on sustainable development. As to the definition of stakeholder the manual provides (above), it is noted that genuine stakeholders (customers, shareholders, employees) are put in one basket with individuals, organisations, and institutions that merely contest or tax the corporation. This neglect is corrected later on by distinguishing types of 213

8 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES JUNE 2007 stakeholders (145 ff.) with respect to whom the company should start developing processes of measuring (!). In their enumeration of stakeholders, the authors show more sense than most by not mentioning the natural environment as a stakeholder. The environment is not a person, therefore impossibly a stakeholder nature has no perceptions. In what sense then, the manipulation of the stakeholders perception can overtly be measured and reported is a question that is rather not explicitly treated in the manual. With regard to (A), then, the verdict is that CR is not clearly delineated. Instead, the manual fills the concept with what is expected of the corporation (perceptions) and as per usual, it being a sales pitch it is pointed out that the expectations are vehemently on the rise. Yet, it is not discussed in depth whether that rise is justified all the way down and neither is it explained how to demarcate responsibility in my opinion, both puzzles go together. But, this silence does not render the manual philosophically invalid thanks to the utilitarian turn the authors have taken and what they point out as the material task of Managing Responsibility: it is managing the stakeholders to the benefit of the corporate activity. What has no impact on future corporate activity is thus outside the realm of responsibility. Perception is reality. With regard to (B), we see that the book offers a set of instruments that can be applied in a wide set of circumstances, such as ISO9000, SA8000 and so on. Those instruments normalize practices and situations: they set minimal standards for processes and conditions. Therefore, it is easily believed that through obtaining certification of standardization, one is behaving ethically (whether in the normative or in the teleological sense) and that discretion by the individual officer is no longer needed. Indeed, those certifications lead one to believe that one is in control, that one is managing the situation. Evidently, this cannot be denied categorically. But the instruments by themselves fail to show what the responsibility of the corporation is and what one exactly is in control of. By offering management a set of visible tools such as labels, certifications, eloquently numbered standardisations that all aim at the status of universal standards, the manual limits the liberty of the manager and his reports. Yet, the authors diminish the importance of universal labels and standards explicitly and are at pains to point out that companies have basic individuality (56) and that circumstances are particular. So, one size fits all is out of the question and the standards do not cover responsibility. To conclude on alternative (B): although the authors stress the particularity of each corporation, it is to be expected that standardisation ( of ethical conduct ) would take the overhand when the manual would be put in practice massively. Ergo: less discretion for the individual corporate officer, more standards to comply with. In return for the lesser responsibility, the individual officer gains in certainty: sticking to the procedures of the label or the standard does it. The interpretation (B) is true, yet the very notion of particularity leaves room for discretion by the individual corporate officer. The observations on the previous alternatives do not render impossible that the title is referring to complete control of every responsibility (C). By its very nature, TQMethics is totalitarian in ambition. No corporate activity, practice or routine is exempt from being the object of TQM; the Quality of everything should be controlled. Yet, Quality can never be reached, so TQM is here to stay, for ever and ever we will always 214

9 BOOK REVIEWS do TQM (cf. towards ever-more responsible practice, 120). And without exception we will all practice TQM, because TQM is here to establish attitude and practice with every employee. And, crucially, Quality encompasses all other adjectives of corporate processes and outputs: colour, size, user friendliness, timeliness, and so on. (This being the logical result of at once the definition of Quality as perception-by-the-customer and Quality being the most abstract quality of all qualities, being the category attribute that subsumes all particular attributes.) The same goes for Responsibility once accepted and on the loose, it will never go away, reaching every process and every attribute within the corporation. So, yes, those kinds of normative-goal-ethics have totalitarian streaks. Thus, alternative (C) holds. In practice, however, discourse on Responsibility will not be that openly totalitarian in spirit. The reason is that whereas Quality is merely in the commercial field (though in all good governance totally independent from marketing and sales departments), Responsibility refers to juridical discourses too. Now, corporate legal responsibility is not being promoted as Total but rather as limited, for reasons not so hard to imagine. Therefore, alternative (D) also holds: the overall position on Total Responsibility is ambiguous. The outcome of these philosophical reflections does not render the book uninteresting. Quite to the contrary. In its genre, it is one of the best. It is compact. It harbours a useful mechanics for building CSR-instruments and manifestations. Its overall approach (top down, from mission statement to daily practice), its no-nonsense style of presentation, its numerous examples from history ( practice ), its orientation to processes rather than hierarchy, make it an excellent manual. It may serve as a guide for the perplexed because it sketches a path that seems inevitable and deceptively easy to follow. Yet, it is not a path for behaving ethically as would most of the population understand the term. And hopefully will understand for a while yet. Indeed, we see several risks when The Manual would have full impact in corporate practice. First is the danger of the identification of ethical behaviour with standardised processes already alluded to. Philosophers note that Quality and Responsibility both are on the same narrow and dangerous path between the thoughtless reification of ethics and the profound relativism that goes with perception as the pivotal element in the paradigms. Second is the danger of hollow uniformity in application and mindless use of the manual as an instruction set here, the authors go free. Thirdly, TQM and TRM have in common the risk of mistaking doing things right with doing the right thing or doing things responsibly with doing responsible things. Fourthly, radical relativism and the cynicism that might go with it present a certain danger for social cohesion within the corporation itself, to begin with. Of course, responsibility for this too rests with the practitioners the authors of the manual provided an excellent tool and accompanied it with warnings and have thus acquitted their responsibility. However, its philosophical presuppositions and claims should be critically questioned and analysed. After all, the responsibility of our corporations, now and in the future, is the possibility to provide for our pensions. Jos Leys, practicing corporate philosopher Belgium 215

10 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES JUNE 2007 MALCOLM MURRAY (editor), Liberty, Games and Contracts. Jan Narveson and the Defense of Libertarianism. Hampshire and Burlington: Ashgate, pp. Liberty, Games and Contracts is a festschrift for the Canadian philosopher Jan Narveson. Jan Narveson is less famous (or infamous) as a defender of libertarianism than Nozick, but he is no less sharp. He defends libertarian politics on the basis of a Hobbesian individualist-based contractarian ethic. Rational agents in a pre-moral choice situation will agree to do only what is necessary to achieve peace compatible with a maximum amount of liberty to pursue their individual aims. They will recognise the need to endorse and adhere to a rule restricting harms. Besides by contraposition of philosophy that outright rejects the human individual as a starting point for construing ethics, this structure can be criticised on three levels: (1) to reject contractarian ethics, (2) to reject the link between contractarianism and libertarianism, or (3) to deny that negative rights alone provide the best protection of human liberties. The editor ordered the fourteen papers that constitute this festschrift according to those three strategies. Together, they make up three parts of the book, the fourth being reserved for Narveson who responds to each of them. Mostly, he does this by sharply pointing out where the author goes astray by contaminating concepts of true libertarian philosophy or by accepting assumptions or engendering consequences that are inconsistent. At times the tackle is more subtle as the contributing papers are of high philosophical quality. Now, most of us are not into libertarianism and its tenets. Several features may account for that. For instance, contractarianism is rather formal ethics. The rationality of game theory and economics in general is rather abstract and mathematically formal. It is devoid of human emotion such as wondering and admiring (cf. the contribution by Peter Danielson to this festschrift, who also authored Artificial Morality: Virtuous Robots for Virtual Games). The approach is without the realities of real life as we live it; it lacks mud, tears, and insects. Without a doubt, game-ethics often represents counterfactual calculus. It is true too, that we never have ever found ourselves in a pre-moral condition, reasoning about how to escape that condition by designing contracts (pointed out rather inadvertently by Duncan MacIntosh s contribution Who Owns Me: Me or My Mother? How to Escape Okin s Problem for Nozick s and Narveson s Theory of Entitlement). Therefore, contractarian ethics can never be the entirety of ethics. This implies that it goes astray when it starts entertaining such notion. The ultra-libertarian thinking is not about the agency problem that is in most particular and socially definable situations, such as investor and manager, lender and banker, and so on; it is about agency problem amongst human beings as such. Thus, it is unmistakenly abstract and consciously so. Yet, one might seriously wonder if this does not constitute a transcendentalism, applying socially specific notions on human beings without further qualification. But the philosophical and scientific merits of the tradition can not be denied. A philosophy of economics, contracts and above all finance, no longer can claim to be credible without at least explaining its position towards some of 216

11 BOOK REVIEWS the branches of contract and game theory, because concrete human functioning has always a contractarian aspect to it, whether we like that or not, and because finance is all about dealing in trust. Novels have been written on all kinds of contractual situation, from child/mother, lover/lover, and on to master/servant deficiencies. Fairy tales are spun around those. The emotions we know are associated with them go deep; it is about expectation ( contract ) and trust in one s fellow beings on whom depends for one s very happiness. Yet, contractarian ethics is a near-formal theory and thereby it does not mention emotions. Therefore, it is almost closed to many ethicists that prefer literary representation. E. Levinas provides such an extreme literary expression with his ethics of the Face of the Other, that radiates his unspoken demand upon you. Such an extreme literary style of philosophy does not contribute to any business ethics whatsoever because by its very nature it effaces the particulars of the situation, e.g., such as identifying participants in the roles of manager and collaborator; it transforms the particulars, the corporate officers, into some ghostlike others. In order to illustrate my point, I refer to the July 2007 volume of Business Ethics: A European Review a special issue on Levinas, Business, Ethics. The dry juxtaposition of those terms articulates it very well. Horresco referens: articles bear titles such as the impossibility of corporate ethics or the exteriority of ethics in management and its transition into justice, the ethics of alterity and the teaching of otherness. The title of the last contribution by E. Karamali says it all: Emmanuel Levinas, a stranger in business ethics. One does not need strangers in business ethics, one needs competent professionals that can drive the research and practice forwards. Those are not to be found in literary or otherworldoriented philosophy. This is for the simple reason that business is not driven by poetry, by pity, by justice or by awe; it is driven by and developed through definable and empirically observable contracts. A corporation is a structure of governance rather than a bunch of awe-inspiring people. Otherness does not come into the management of business stock traders and hedge funds do. And they may justly claimed to be completely illiterate. So, the added value of contractarian ethics to business ethics and to business itself is infinitely greater than literary ethics ever can aspire to bring to the table. Another way to reject the tradition consist in linking it up with history. Indeed, the development of the individual undoubtedly is a mere historical fact in Western history and it has many deplorable aspects and consequences (such as exaggerated ecological pressure). Without a doubt, this historical development preceded the discipline or tradition. But it does not do to tackle the discipline by constantly pointing out historical or ideological assumptions that lay behind it. The historical context, or rather the fact that a discipline has a particular historical context, does not imply that it is nothing more than an ideological translation of a deplorable drive towards individualism. Historical context most certainly does not invalidate results in game theory. Narveson and the contributors also show that the approach is legitimate in that it can be applied to real-world, pre-philosophical problems such as the insufficiency of blood donors (in Canada), the legitimacy of expanding bureaucracies within the welfare state, the totalitarian tendencies in Western democracies and so on. The approach is not only validly applicable (yet, 217

12 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES JUNE 2007 as always covering merely an aspect), it is also very much needed in its near-arithmetic variety and in its more historically-literary style, as practiced by Peter Drucker. As to the political philosophy that often can be spotted as the undercurrent, we should be mindful. Whether we like them or not, we need philosophers that oppose the concept of the state and other centralising structures that by nature tend to curb individual freedom if not individuality. This festschrift offers high level philosophy on contracts, transactions, autonomy, games, and social structures. Students of political philosophy, ethics, and philosophy of economics will find the contributions lucid and the dialogue with dem Gefeierte entertaining. Malcolm Murray and the contributors have done an excellent job. The book is very well indexed (twenty-three pages) and the list of works cited is impeccable. One can only hope, together with Narveson himself, that this production brings this branch of thinking to the attention of a wider interested public. One does not have to agree with the authors to enjoy this collection indeed, Narveson himself elegantly disagrees with all contributors and does not step back on any of the criticisms. One will be challenged, puzzled, provoked, and entertained at a very respectable intellectual level. Which is what professional philosophy is all about. By being a social discipline besides arithmetical and biological, the subject matter of contractarian ethics is a moving target. This is because morals and society are in a sustained development even without the discipline. On top of that the discipline provides reflective feedback. Thus, the social and business person learns by discovering and developing this new branch of ethics or rather this fairly young twig of the branch that originates with Hobbes and Smith. Jos Leys Belgium BRIAN BROCK, Singing the Ethos of God. On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, xxi pp. Brian Brock s book is a substantial contribution to the debate about the place of the Bible in Christian ethics. It is full of refreshing and challenging insights that fully explores spirituality and its relation to ethics. The book is divided into three parts. The first looks at contemporary accounts of the Bible in Christian ethics. The first chapter is the approach that seeks to interpret Scripture in terms of ethical questions. This means that Scripture is viewed in terms of other criteria and Brock argues that this self-conscious reading of Scripture robs it of moral distinctiveness and significance. The second chapter discusses the communitarian approach. This looks to the development of the Christian character in and through the community, and includes the effect in that experience and process of the Holy Spirit. Brock is clearly happier with this but suggests that the vehicle for the development of the character is confined only to narrative. The third chapter sees the Bible as the focus of any ethical deliberation, and for Brock this means that we have to stay with the moral challenges that scripture presents to us. The fourth approach to Christian 218

13 BOOK REVIEWS Ethics and how this relates to the Bible is through the development of doctrine. This enables us to begin to make sense of the exegesis and how it relates to ethics. The final approach, highlighted in Bonhoeffer, involves the reading the Bible as meditation. Once more, the active development of the Christian is involved, involving hearing, repentance, and sanctification. However, Brock is concerned that in this reading Scripture can become a book that contains moral claims rather than leading one further into the richness of meditation. In the second part, Brock takes us into the exegetical moral theologies of Augustine and Luther. He focuses on the their work on the Psalms and with that on the forgiveness of life in the Spirit within which faith is awakened to discover itself (xx). This does not involve hermeneutic but rather entering God s story, and in doing so learning to live and find a home in the essential provisionality of life in the Spirit. This leads to the third part of the book, which involves what Brock sees as a recasting of the role of the Bible in Christian ethics. His overall critique of contemporary methodologies is that they have inverted the theological proper question about the role of Scriptures in Christian ethics (xix). The proper way round is to ask what is the place of Christian ethics within the Bible, not what is the place of the Bible in Christian Ethics. Through a reading of Psalms 130 and 104, Brocks aims to show how Christian ethics should be conceived of as within God s work, as articulated in the Scriptures. It is hard to do full justice to such a fine piece of scholarship and I would urge all ethicists, Christian and other, to read it. It very effectively argues for the primacy of Scripture and for a reading of the Scripture that engages the whole person. There is to be no preconceived general theory of ethics but rather an immersion in the scripture such that over time we become at one with the God s pattern of life. Our lives are shaped through reading this scripture, as Bernd Wannenwetsch puts it on the back cover, appropriately. It is precisely at that point, however, that I lose the plot. Just what is the appropriate way of reading/relating to the Scriptures? I fully endorse the importance of reading the Scriptures in the way that Brock suggests. However, I think there are good pastoral, spiritual, and ethical reasons for doing so. I would also agree that ethics is much more than discovering precepts, or applying theology or building up the virtues in community. At the heart of ethics, I would argue, is the development of a critical moral consciousness (Mustakova Possardt 2004). This is not so much about attitudes or dispositions as about an awareness and appreciation of the other, the capacity to respond to the other and the development of significant life meaning in those relationships of care. For Christian ethics, this involves a consciousness of the Holy Spirit in his creative and re-creative work. Scripture is a key source for developing our awareness of the Spirit. However, it is not clear that this is the only one, and equally not clear that our relationship to it, however holistic, needs to be uncritical. On the contrary there are many places in the Scriptures where, however long one worships and focuses, it is unlikely that Christians will agree on what it actually tells us about God s pattern of work or even that there is a pattern that we can assent to. We only have to read the many different Christian responses to the Abraham 219

14 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES JUNE 2007 and Isaac story to see that. Whilst many want to find some acceptable view of testing and obedience in that passage many find it to be simply unacceptable. Here a key difference emerges between my view of Christian ethics and Brock s. I want to argue that Christian Ethics, involving learning to be with the Spirit and respond in his power, is not a function simply of worship and more and more identifying with Him. How that actually emerges is a function of critical and holistic dialogue. As Fasching and Dechant suggest, this might involve a major challenge of the Scriptures, but is precisely in that wrestling and that risk that the presence of the Spirit becomes real. Sometimes God s pattern of life in that dialogue comes not from Scripture but from some other source. Sometimes our view of that Scripture needs to be challenged and put to one side. None of this lessens the relationship. In all this, I would want to question Brock s idea of foreignness. It seems to me that there is another sense of foreignness about Scripture that goes beyond provisionality, that is the presence of the other, the stranger. The presence of the stranger in ethical dialogue ushers in a complex dynamic. The very difference of the other brings in risk, challenging the person to respond and learn more, to think and feel beyond any ethical comfort zones, and to articulate and clarify belief and values. This demands real, by which I mean mutual, dialogue and challenge. Reader, you will by now have gathered how ambivalent I feel about this book, and I apologize if this has led me to be other than objective. However, I think that much of Christian ethics is about engaging with ambiguity, as much in ourselves as in God. Hence, I have no problem in writing that Brain Brock has written a book of immense scholarship and applauding him for that. At the same time, I would suggest that the alternative to a narrow perspective of Christian ethics has been left unexplored. The author s question might better be put not what is the place of the Bible in Christian ethics, nor what is the place of Christian ethics in the Bible, but rather how do Christian ethics and the Bible relate, to explore and practice the creative and redemptive work of God. Work cited MUSTOKOVA-POSSARDT, E. (2004) Education for Critical Moral Consciousness. Journal of Moral Education, 33, September, Simon Robinson Leeds Metropolitan University JOHN E. HARE, God and Morality. Oxford: Blackwell, vi, 309 God and Morality began as an introductory text, but took on a life of its own. What gives it that life are two things. In the first four chapters, Hare focuses on four philosophers to represent four eras: Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Kant, and R.M Hare (the author s father), and in the subsequent chapter he attempts to draw together their work into a systemic theory of ethics that demands a theological premise. In each of the first four chapters, Hare focuses on the theistic foundations of the thinkers in question. He also compares each to a modern exponent of their approaches, in order: Arnhart, Sartre, Korsgaard, and Singer. 220

15 BOOK REVIEWS A similar argument, of course, is suggested by Alistair McIntyre and even forms the basis of a populist evangelical view that morality still depends upon religion (see Robinson 2007). Hare, however, is careful to avoid the argument that any attempt to pursue the ethical theories set out will fail without theism. His more nuanced argument is that theism is an important part of the four theories, that the theories get into difficulties without that theism, and that continued use of these theories without God demands the use of a non-theistic variant that does the work of God in the original versions. In effect, Hare suggests that there is a spiritual dimension to ethics that theories often try to ignore. At one level this is fairly obvious. It is hard to develop a meaningful ethics that does not have, for instance, an underlying view, or doctrine, of the nature of humanity and the value of the human experience. What is not so obvious, and what provides a powerful foundation for the development of Hare s argument, is just how much theism was a part of, for instance, Aristotle s ethics. Whilst the theism of Aristotle looks quite different from the Judeo-Christian variety, nonetheless the areas of concern are roughly the same. In all this, it is not clear in Aristotle s writings whether there is one or many gods, or whether in or outside the person. Aristotle is clear, however, that the noblest criterion for choice about natural goods is whether it is most conducive to the contemplation of God (64). Much of this will be a real challenge to students of philosophy brought up on a diet of virtue ethics and the like. If the first four chapters are highly significant the question is: does the final chapter work? I think it works in Hare s terms. He does not intend to provide the last word on the issue, but rather a coherent picture of how combining the key point of the first four chapters might look. At one level it is about how virtue theory, consequentialism, and command theory might come together. Of itself, this is also not a surprise. Most virtue-ethics theory can include something about consequences and vice versa. However, Hare suggests the importance of an ethical perspective that transcends the limited perspectives of groups and related theories of ethics. In effect, he commends the R.M. Hare view of God as a model or ideal, that we try to approximate in our moral thinking (285). Whilst this provides a coherent picture, I would argue that it also demonstrates the limitations of philosophical ethics. Pastoral theologians increasingly argue that God is not simply the ideal, that which is beyond the limited ethical perceptions of the person, but is also relates to the person and through that relationship enables the person to transcend those limitations in and through the development of critical moral consciousness and responsiveness. This is a more positive and personal view of the theistic dimension that focuses not just on doctrine and ideal but on the dynamic of relating to a God in whom is found the ground of value. By definition, this takes ethics into the realm of personal commitment and transformation. In turn, this moves into the world of Ricoeurian critical reflection and creativity. Once such a view is open for philosophical reflection, then this takes the argument beyond the combination of theories into fundamental questions of epistemology and relationships. This book is important. It offers a profound contribution rather than the last word on theism and ethics. Clearly, because the focus is Western philosophy, the theism that 221