Humanism Ireland • No 147 • July-August 2014 Books Brian McClinton Ethical Holy Grail

The Quest for a Moral Compass • Kenan Malik • Atlantic Books • 2014

OOKS written in English on the Morality’, he discusses what many history of morality tend to con- regard as the current moral crisis, Bcentrate on western thought which he says was heralded by the and offer rather abstract, not to say Cambridge philosopher Elizabeth heavy, discussions of the key figures. Anscombe in a 1958 paper and de- Kenan Malik’s excellent new work is veloped further by writers such as different. First, it is a truly global Alasdair MacIntyre in his 1981 book history which also encompasses After Virtue. For MacIntyre the En- Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese and Is- lightenment was the main culprit lamic writings. Secondly, it is a highly because it denied any external pur- lucid and immensely readable survey pose in life and substituted the sover- in which Malik wears his learning eignty of the individual for objective lightly. The reader will readily gain a values. Yet of course this is a relig- greater knowledge of the search for ious critique, reinforced by the fact the elusive ethical holy grail and a that both Anscombe and MacIntyre greater insight into the complexities converted to Catholicism. of human behaviour. It is quite sim- Though Malik is highly critical of ply one of the three best recent books their argument, he also questions on intellectual history, the others attempts by so-called New Atheists being Steven Pinker’s The Better An- A key feature of Malik’s approach such as Same Harris (in The Moral gels of our Nature (2011) and An- is indeed to demonstrate that while Landscape, 2010) to root morality in thony Pagden’s The Enlightenment different cultures and eras have had science. “The irony is that the classic and Why It Still Matters (2013). some different notions of morality, argument against looking to God as Malik begins with the ancient there are also many common themes. the source of moral values – the Greeks, including Homer, Aeschylus, This is apparent in his detailed Euthyphro dilemma – is equally the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato and treatment of Hinduism, Buddhism applicable to the claim that science Aristotle. He has much to say about and Islam, as well as Christianity. is, or should be, the arbiter of good the Stoics, including the second- Thus the Golden Rule was formu- and evil” (p317). If wellbeing is de- century philosopher Hierocles, lated by Kongzi, better known in the fined simply by the existence of cer- whose Elements of Ethics refers to West as Confucius, 500 years before tain neural states, or particular hor- the concept of concentric circles. Jesus as: “Do not inflict on others mones or whatever, then the notion Each individual stands at the centre what you yourself would not wish of wellbeing is arbitrary. of the first circle. Next comes the done to you”. It surely remains as a Malik ends by quoting Man’s immediate family, followed by the fundamental principle of morality in Search for Meaning (1946), written extended family, the local commu- the modern era. by Viktor Frankel, who had spent nity, the country, and finally the en- Malik returns constantly to the three years in concentration camps, tire human race. To be virtuous, Hi- question of the basis of morality. including six months in Auschwitz. erocles suggested, is to draw these Obviously, the monotheistic religions Humans, he suggests, find themselves circles together, constantly to transfer argued that it is God’s law. Nor was only through meaning in the world, people from the outer circles to the there any point in asking, as Socrates and that meaning exists in our rela- inner circles, to treat strangers as did, whether God’s law is good. tionship with others. What can pos- cousins and cousins as brothers and “Morality was indeed arbitrary. That sibly be more Humanist than that? sisters, making all human beings part was the whole point of it” (p171). Perhaps the best recommendation of our concern. Epictetus indeed Yet most secular philosophers have for Malik’s terrific survey is that it thought that everyone should ‘call not been satisfied with this (non) was rubbished by John Gray in the himself a citizen of the world’. answer. Malik gives excellent outlines New Statesman (6th-12th June). He This process, known by the Greeks of the ethical philosophies of Hume believes that progress for the human as oikeiosis, is alive today, though we (morality is based on emotion and animal, with its ‘perpetually warring might add the animal kingdom and our benevolent nature), Kant (moral- moralities’, is an illusion. But Gray, even the earth itself as further outer ity is based on reason and duty) and the magazine’s lead reviewer, is an circles. The notion provides the title Hutcheson-Bentham-Mill (morality anti-humanist, reactionary pessi- of Peter Singer’s book The Expand- is based on consequence and the mist, which makes it particularly ing Circle. In his History of Euro- greatest happiness of the greatest strange that such fatalistic thinking pean Morals (1869), Lecky regarded number). should constantly besmirch the it as the key element of humankind’s Entering the modern era in a pages of a left-liberal weekly journal moral progress from primitive times. chapter entitled ‘The Unravelling of of hope.  20