Book Reviews

Robin Attfield. Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 137 pp.

Robin Attfield’s Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction is urgently needed at a time of climate change, the sixth mass extinction, destruction of the last remaining natural environments and the emergence of the Anthropocene. Attfield is a prominent scholar in environmental ethics and has contributed extensively to the field since the early 1980s, providing him with a long-term view of its development. His work ranges from biocen- trism to Christian attitudes, from global warming to loss of biodiversity. He is professor emeritus at Cardiff University and very qualified to write such an introduction. Attfield is successful in providing a comprehensive introduction to the key areas of environmental ethics. Instead of summarising all these themes and arguments here, I wish instead to explore the contents by raising two important themes that are prominent in the book. Firstly, raising and clarifying conceptual complexities is one of the key tasks of environmental ethics. Attfield recognises this and introduces the reader to important concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘the environment’, ‘moral standing’, and ‘value’, which are not as axiomatic as they might first seem and are open to different interpretations. Thus, environmental ethics provides a more nuanced and careful analysis of environmental issues. Secondly, Attfield shows that the themes of environmental ethics are not only important philosophically, but also have significant real-world implications. Indeed, as Attfield puts it “[…] recognizing the moral standing of living creatures does not make moral decisions impossible, or morality impractical. Instead, it enriches our understanding of the context of action and of moral decision-making” (22). Attfield analyses the ability of main ethical theories (contract models, virtue ethics, deontology and consequentialism) to recognise and respond to environmental problems. Unlike the style of introductory literature in general, Attfield takes a clear stance on the type of environmental ethics approach he endorses, promoting biocentric consequentialism (according to which it is the state of affairs (e.g. flourishing) of all living organisms that matters) over the other ethical theories. However, he goes on to emphasise that “[e] nvironmental ethics is rather a dialogue between many stances and voices, and certainly not a single stance” (59). In addition, he emphasises that environmental ethics is not simply focused on non-humans, but is also concerned with the intersection between the environment and humans. One of the prominent issues is the moral standing of future

ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES 26, no. 3 (2019): 535-552. © 2019 by Centre for Ethics, KU Leuven. All rights reserved. doi: 10.2143/EP.26.3.3287344 ethical perspectives – september 2019 human generations and the many ways the environment contributes to human wellbeing. The key underlying message is that the broadening of our ethical realm is not only possible but also necessary. The latter half of the book demonstrates this wide reach of environmental ethics and goes beyond intramural discussions to cover environmental policy and practice, social and political movements, and how religions across the world have affected environmental ethics. Among other things, Attfield provides an interesting analysis of the content of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, discusses the practice and limits of ecological preservation, evaluates ecofeminist theories (which explore the intersection of feminism and environmental thought), environmental justice movements (which rep- resent the battle of disadvantaged social groups against their disproportionate position in suffering from environmental burdens) and how theistic religions have promoted the idea of environmental stewardship. Finally, Attfield explores one of the defining problems of humanity: climate change. As scientific consensus on climate change and its effects is intensifying, so too are the ethical theories provided by environmental ethics. Adaptation, mitigation and compensation strategies are explored and different tools for making sense of moral responsibility over climate change offered by philosophers are introduced. Importantly, Attfield not only looks at the responsibilities of humans (col- lective and individual), but also how the inclusion of non-human beings would fit and effect climate ethics. For Attfield, climate change is truly a test-case for environmental ethics displaying its practical relevance and importance. Despite the book being short, Attfield is successful in representing the great depth and volume of environmental ethics in a very concise space and in a balanced manner. Not only does the reader gain a good basic understanding of environmental ethics, but Attfield also manages to explain complex phenomena and theories with comprehensible ease. I do have a few minor critical remarks to make. Throughout the book, Attfield makes clear to the reader his position in environmental ethics, which is biocentric consequentialism. This approach can have both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side, it provides the book with a clearer narrative as many of the ethical problems and dilemmas are not left out in the open without a clear ethical solution. This can be particularly helpful for those readers who are new to philosophy. At the same time, however, promoting one ethical standpoint or theory over another too overtly in an introductory work can leave little space for the reader to decide which arguments are most convincing to them. Of course, deontologists, virtue ethicists and ecocentrists disagree with Attfield’s position that biocentric consequentialism offers the best solu- tions for environmental problems. My critical remark is not directed towards the fact that Attfield clearly displays his environmental ethical position. On the contrary, I find that this works very well (and this is how environmental ethics works). I am simply pointing out that greater emphasis could have been placed on the fact that this is the writer’s position, that others (including the reader) might not agree, and that many of the competing theories have convincing (if not equally convincing) arguments, their point of focus often simply being different. In addition, I felt that the chapter on

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deontology in particular was slightly rushed compared to the other theories covered, which meant that environmental interpretations of deontology were not really discussed. Furthermore, I would have included the term ‘environmental ethics’ in the ‘some key concepts’ chapter. Defining ‘environmental ethics’ would have been useful, as another very similar term, ‘environmental philosophy’, is also being used by the philosophical community. Environmental philosophy is a broader field within philosophy under which environmental ethics belongs as a subfield. This categorisation is important because environmental ethics leaves other important evironmental topics such as philosophy of science, philosophy of technology, aesthetic and ontological evaluation of the environment outside its scope. Or has the field been misnamed altogether after the influential journal in the field called Environmental Ethics, as suggested by Eugene Har- grove in Foundations of Environmental Ethics (New Jersey: Prentice Hall,1989, 3)? Having some background information about the term ‘environmental ethics’ and its evolution would help any newcomers to better navigate the field. This short introduction is particularly timely and I would recommend it to anyone not yet familiar with environmental ethics and even to those more knowledgeable of the field, who simply wish to have a recap of the main issues. Books like these are particularly useful for such a purpose, as the subject area of environmental ethics is particularly broad. It is truly impressive how Attfield manages to condense such large issues so succinctly into such a short book. Linnea Luuppala University of Helsinki

Russell Blackford. The Tyranny of Opinion: Conformity and the Future of Liberalism. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. 244 pp.

Freedom of thought and freedom of expression are two of the oldest freedoms liberalism has fought for. It all began with the demand for freedom of religious beliefs and their expression, as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries. Politics, art and many other domains followed. Reasons for demanding respect for these basic freedoms are varied, and many philosophers have theorized them in influential books. One of these philosophers was John Stuart Mill, whose On Liberty was one of the most influential defences of the freedom of expression. Thus, it is not a surprise that Russell Blackford’s recently published book draws heavily on Mill, the less so as Blackford presents himself as an Enlightenment Liberal, a term which also fits Mill. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of his book provide a good discussion of some of Mill’s main points and the problems they might pose, especially with regard to the correct interpretation of the famous ‘harm principle’. Blackford notices two blind spots in Mill’s analysis. On the one hand, Mill mainly, if not exclusively, insists on the expression of opinions, thus neglecting a great part of, for example, artistic expression. On the other hand, and this is more important for Blackford, Mill does not account sufficiently for informal and private oppression of

— 537 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 ethical perspectives – september 2019 thought. If the State can prohibit the expression of certain individual opinions, public opinion can prevent this expression as well and sometimes even better. Had Blackford read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, he would have seen that the French thinker had precisely insisted on this point, writing, among other things, that in the United States, public opinion was much more efficient than the Inquisition had been in Europe. While the Inquisition could never prevent the writing of books, public opinion can exercise such an influence on the individual mind that one does not even imagine writing a book containing ideas contrary to public opinion. The main target of Blackford’s book is not the Right and a public opinion influenced by its conservative ideas, but the Left. And the targets of the Left Blackford writes about are not conservatives, but persons who can also be counted as being left-wing or liberal. In what he calls a ‘litany of horrors’ (127), the author discusses several cases in which devastating attacks were launched against people who had said things that dis- pleased one individual or the other. Erika Christakis’s questioning, for example, of the appropriateness of an email issued for a Halloween Party at Yale University asking students to be sensitive when choosing their costumes ultimately led to staff resigning their posts In the cases related by Blackford, things said or written gave rise to considerable outrage, in an atmosphere with “[…] supercharged anxieties about identity and offence” (210). For some people on the Left, people who take sides with oppressed minorities, any criticism of such a minority or anything that could look like such a criticism, is made the object of vehement attack. And if in the not-so-distant past these attacks remained rather confined, the Internet allowed them to expand to a magnitude hardly anyone could have imagined thirty years ago. In a couple of minutes, the entire world can be informed of the fact that X has said this or that, and in a couple of minutes, a whole range of anonymous Internet users can form a cybermob, inundating the Web with the most horrible insults and even death threats. Under such circumstances, it is understandable that some people prefer not to express their opinion. But though humanly understandable, such a situation is far from normal. Everyone should be free to contribute to the public debate, even if what he or she has to say does not please everyone and even offend some. Blackford uses the expressions ‘Enlightenment Liberalism’ and ‘Revisionist Liberalism’ to make a distinction between a form of liberalism that upholds a freedom of expression as large as possible – excluding only outright appeals to violence – and a form of liberalism that sanctifies certain groups or identities and then silences whatever it does not want to hear about them (142). What scares Blackford is the fact that many intellectuals of the Left often do not show any kind of solidarity with those who are publicly stigmatized, with some of them even joining the cybermob. Hence his appeal: “If enough of us are more honest, this just might make honesty a safer option for everybody” (97). And he makes it clear that free expression cannot be distributed along partisan lines: “[…] we should go on oppos- ing our opponents but we must also defend their right to oppose us” (199). Here a saying attributed – however falsely – to Voltaire comes to mind: “I am not of your

— 538 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 book reviews opinion, but I will fight for your right to express it.” Rather than think that our camp, or even our group, is the only one to be in possession of truth, we should allow other persons to express their opinions and we should do nothing that might contribute to the creation of a climate of fear. In the final chapter of the book, Blackford mentions an anonymous reviewer for the publisher Bloomsbury who wrote in his blind peer-review “[…] that the manuscript of The Tyranny of Opinion merely repackages an existing social consensus” (213). I would rather say that the book illustrates with contemporary examples ideas that can already be found in Tocqueville. I cannot really find anything new or original in the book, and I wonder how Peter Boghossian could call it ‘a masterpiece’ to be read by ‘every university professor’ (cover page). This does not mean that it is a bad book. Nor does it mean that Blackford should not have written it or that Bloomsbury should not have published it. Someone who is familiar with the problems discussed in the book will not see his or her thought-horizon extended. But he or she will nevertheless be glad to see that there are still some persons who are not afraid to openly oppose those in their own camp and to fight intolerance wherever it may come from. Moreover, he or she will be glad to see that there are still some people who adopt a nuanced way of thinking and admit that, “[…] complexity seldom pleases others, yet it’s indispensable for serious understanding” (11). In this context, one would have wished that Blackford had been more careful himself and had thought twice before writing that abortion or physician-assisted suicide are today not opposed by ‘liberals of any kind’ (197). Taking account of the complexities of these questions in an equally complex society, one can be a liberal and find plausible reasons to reduce abortion and physician-assisted suicide to a minimum. In refusing to admit that one can be a liberal and nevertheless oppose physician-assisted suicide or abortion – though not with the penalization of the woman who has recourse to it, nor of the doctor who practices it – Blackford practices a politics of exclusion or stigmatiza- tion, which he criticizes all through the book. To conclude: the book may be useful for students who want to have a brief and clear exposition of Mill’s main ideas about freedom of speech and for those who want to find examples for the intolerance of the Left. Norbert Campagna Université du Luxembourg

Brad Inwood. Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 136 pp.

Oxford University Press’s A Very Short Introduction series entrusts to outstanding scholars the often-difficult task of presenting a selected topic or figure in a synthesis that is brief and accessible on the one hand, while being up to date and well-sourced on the other. A new volume on Stoicism appeared in print in 2018. Given increasing specializa- tion in academia, this burdens the author with a great deal of trouble, but the work

— 539 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 ethical perspectives – september 2019 provides a wonderful resource to both the interested layperson, as well as the professional philosopher looking to step into Hellenistic philosophy. This volume is authored by Brad Inwood, who is highly regarded for his contribu- tions on Pre-Socratic philosophy as well as on the Stoics – notably his delightful book on Seneca and his editorial work in organizing The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). He has also made available translations of various extant writings of the earlier Hellenistic Stoics into modern language for the first time. The author is therefore rightly counted as a leading authority on the topic (perhaps along with scholars such as A.A. Long and M. Schofield). The author has been able to produce here an interesting introduction to Stoicism, overcoming the “[…] striking gap between the current understanding of Stoicism […] and contemporary academic writing about the ancient school” (10). As Inwood points out, the ancient Hellenistic school of philosophy and the ‘therapeutic’ presentation of Stoic ethics by, among others, the French philosopher Pierre Hadot (The Inner Citadel: Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), are two very different things. The current “[…] view of Stoicism as a practical psychological aid is probably the commonest current approach to the school in our own society. But there is another conception of Stoicism that we should also consider, one that puts more emphasis on its historical origins and on the underlying theoretical work that led to the development of Stoic philosophy in the ancient world and provided reasons for adopt- ing their views rather than those of other therapeutic philosophies” (9-10). The gap between popular opinion and scholarship is probably unavoidable in all instances, but as the author notes, it is a more serious problem in the case of Stoicism given the fragmentary state of the ancient texts for over three centuries. Despite this obstacle, and in accordance with the aim of the series, the author tries to make Stoicism accessible to the non-professional audience by introducing examples of the current popular use of Stoic ideas. He illustrates the low spirits of Marcus Aurelius by using “Marvin, the paranoid android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (1); reminds us that the Stoic ethical programme is embodied in the academic honour society Phi Beta Kappa (2); and points to entries from a blog that include texts with titles such as “How Does the Stoic Tweet?” (3), as well as Elen Buzare’s spiritual exercises (4). Yet in this attempt to show the current relevance of Stoicism, it seems that the author may have been excessively concerned with making the book accessible to his audience. For these references are probably unnecessary to appeal to the modern reader, who is already capable of grasping the ideal of a serene or ‘stoic’ attitude, given the present thirst for a moral compass. The book is organized into two introductory chapters, in which the author presents the doctrines and personalities of the best-known of the ancient Stoics, a chapter focusing on the historical genesis of Stoicism, three systematic chapters on Stoic physics, ethics, and logic, and a concluding chapter that attempts to bring the work full-circle by integrat- ing the historical and systematic elements with contemporary ones. In more detail, the introductory chapters include brief excerpts from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Epictetus’ Handbook, and later in the book ‘even Seneca’ (in whose case we receive just one quotation and are directed generically towards translations provided by the University of Chicago

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Press). These excerpts are accompanied by short biographies of the personalities in question. Also of note is that this section includes a graphic timeline (11) and briefer references to less well-known figures whose writings have barely survived. The historical chapter places the birth of Stoicism amid the Academic and Peripatetic traditions. Lastly, the three core, systematic chapters attempt a ‘reconstruction’ (10) of Stoic doctrine. Given the fragmentary character of the writings from these figures – especially the early Greek Stoics between 310 and 300 BCE and its Roman revival in the first century CE – the author recognizes that Modern scholars are involved in a task of reconstruction from the notoriously unreliable Diogenes Laertius’ Lives, the imaginative Cicero’s dialogues, and Stoic critics such as Sextus Empiricus, Origen, and Plutarch. This entails a measure of uncertainty about what the Stoic doctrines actually were. This uncertainty is somewhat forgotten in the core, systematic chapters, in which the author presents these Stoic physical or epistemological doctrines. While Inwood acknowledges the possible exception of Marcus Aurelius about the nature of the spirit (as distinct from the materialist Stoic physics) and points to some authors whose only concern is the ethical programme, he is far more interested in presenting Stoicism as providing a comprehensively integrated doctrine ranging from the said ethical programme all the way up to a matching cosmology. In the concluding chapter, he goes so far as to suggest that the recovery of the ancient ethical programme should invite a rapprochement with our best and presumably not ‘obsolete’ modern cosmology. As he says, “[…] even if Stoicism for the modern world were significantly transformed by swapping out an obsolete understanding of the natural world for one based on our current best science, it would, I contend, still be worth doing” (109). The author’s reason for this attempt at reconciliation is that the Stoic ethical programme integrally includes navigating the restraints and opportunities provided by the very nature of the world around us (108). (However, we find it difficult to understand how our modern science of the natural world, which is supposed to be value-neutral, can provide a cosmology rich enough to bear relevance to this sort of ethical program). Throughout the short book, the author ‘takes the side’ of Large Stoicism, making a compelling case for the consistency of the comprehensive worldview involved in the Stoic ethical attitude. Overall, it is remarkable. But the third chapter of the book seems less successful, despite the author’s efforts to clarify the roots of early Stoicism and engage the Greek Stoics in dialogue with “Plato and his followers” (27), who shared the same veneration for Socrates. In chapter 3, Inwood suggests that the fictional cosmology that we find in Plato’s Timaeus (see Catherine Zuckert’s major book on Plato’s philosophers) and Xenophon’s writings appealed to Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. What separated Plato and Xenophon from Zeno was “in a word, metaphysics” (28). That is, the author suggests, why the “[…] early Stoics didn’t just join the school Plato founded” (28) – where probably Zeno studied under Polemo –owing to differences in ‘metaphysics’. Moreover, Inwood takes at face value the traditional interpretation of the theory of forms, despite acknowledging that “[…] there is still a wide-ranging debated about what separation meant to Plato” (29). So, the Stoics had to come up with a new theory.

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The author seems to rely especially on the work of a (nonetheless) brilliant French philosopher, the late Jacques Brunschwig (especially his seminal paper collected in Papers in Hellenistic Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). Inwood agrees that the materialistic giants in Plato’s Sophist provided Zeno “[…] with the way of handling the disagreement about incorporeal Forms, from where he developed an entire philosophical system.” (31). The author clearly suggests to the reader that – notwithstanding the fragmentary and second-hand nature of our knowledge of this early period – the emergence of the Stoic school was grounded in fundamental differences in cosmology and not in a new ethical ideal, barring exceptions made to Aristo of Chios, Minimal Stoicism, and most extant writings of the (late) Roman period. While the author’s narrative of the interaction between Stoicism and the Academic- Peripatetic traditions is an interesting hypothesis, suggesting that they are sheer physicalists may easily mislead the contemporary reader who is used to the modern view, from Descartes onwards, of man, the world, and god – a view that bifurcates in a radical way the concepts of spirit and matter, a view that was alien to the Stoics. Most Stoics whose physical writings are extant do in fact assert that only bodies exist, such that they can be called physicalists. Even so, this can only rightly be said in a looser sense than we are more familiar with, since their cosmology acknowledges non- physical things as subsistent (huphestos) but non-existent, e.g. times, places, and sayables (lektas), in a finely-grained way very different from the strictures of modern thinking. Had Inwood chosen to use an example from contemporary, popular culture, the far more popular Star Wars’ cosmology of the Force would probably illustrate this looser sense of Stoic physicalism better than the analogy using Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy. Moreover, although the author’s presentation of Stoic physics does raise interesting questions about human freedom and causality, Inwood frames the question in terms of Analytic Philosophy as though an ancient form of compatibilism (53-54). Such an approach in modern terms may be misleading because it does not emphasize what is distinctive in Stoic physicalist cosmology. It is unclear to the reader throughout the book to what extent Stoic cosmology implies an anthropology that is entirely different from that of the ‘ghost in the machine’, to use the pithy and revealing expression of Gilbert Ryle. As far as the Stoics are concerned, we have in mind here a comparatively idiosyn- cratic biological anthropology (cf. the references in Dirk Baltzly. “Stoicism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) rather than something akin to the mechanistic view of, for example, J. J. C. Smart. Additionally, even if it is obvious that we should not consider grasping Stoic physics in a radically dualistic way, the presentation does not convey with enough strength the historical contrast between the Atomists and Epicureans on the one hand, and the distinctive use of ‘spirit’ (pneuma) and ‘reason’ (logos) that makes for the characteristically Stoic view on the other. Moreover, nothing is said about the role of the Stoics concerning the natural law (although probably the most consistent presentation is also indirect, through Cicero’s characters in his Republic and Laws), nor does the book explore the magnificent work of M. Schofield about the Stoic view of the city. This could have been at least pedagogically

— 542 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 book reviews useful in demonstrating how there cannot be a modern Stoicism without a complemen- tary cosmology – however that might be achieved in a contemporary way. Despite these reservations, the book is truly remarkable and manages to maintain a difficult balance of appealing to both professionals and to wider readership. Those concerned with living ethically will find a readable introduction to this fascinating school of thought, and philosophers, especially in in the field of Hellenistic philosophy, will find it informative because it does not refrain from presenting an interesting, if sometimes controversial, reconstruction of the early Stoic worldview. This work seems to us a welcome contribution, both for its own merits, and because Hellenistic philosophy as a whole has regretfully received, so far anyway, much less attention than that of the classical Greek period. J. A. Colen Universidad de Minho and University of Navarra Anthony S. Vecchio University of Texas at Arlington

Robert M. McManus, Stanley J. Ward, and Alexandra K. Perry, Ethical Leader- ship: A Primer. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018. 392 pp.

This is a comprehensive and approachable introduction to ethical leadership. The book has two parts. Part I contains ten chapters on the core ethical theories that readers of Ethical Perspectives will undoubtedly be familiar with, including Kantianism, virtue ethics, social contract theory, divine command theory, and ethical egoism. Part II contains five chapters on five models of leadership that, according to McManus et al., “[…] lend themselves well to discussions of ethics and leadership” (239). Examples of such leadership models are adaptive leadership, servant leadership and authentic leadership. The book also contains a useful introduction and conclusion written by the editors. The core chapters are written by academics from a wide variety of backgrounds, such as leadership education, clinical ethics, social entrepreneurship, agricultural education and com- munication, and philosophy. In the present review, I first explain how McManus et al. define ethical leadership. I then critically discuss one of the many topics that are discussed in the book and that I found of interest. After this, I list and evaluate the editors’ conclusions about ethical leadership. I close with my overall assessment of this book. In their introductory chapter, McManus et al. present the so-called “Five Components Analysis of Leadership Model” (7). On this model, understanding leadership requires understanding (i) the leader, (ii) the follower(s), (iii) the goal that the leader and follower are trying to achieve, (iv) the context in which they operate and (v) the cultural values and norms that impact the leadership process. Leadership is subsequently defined as “[…] the process by which leaders and followers work together toward a goal (or goals) within a context shaped by cultural values and norms” (6). Ethical leadership, then, is about doing the right thing, or behaving well, as one assumes the role of leader in this process.

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Here is an example. In 2018, the so-called Presidents Club in Great Britain was dismantled, essentially because it was a group of men behaving badly “[…] in the midst of raising money for good causes” (7). The Presidents Club organised all-male, black-tie dinners at which esteemed members of British Society raised funds for children’s hos- pitals in London – all the while fondling the female waitresses and asking them to dance on the tables. Who was the leader in this example? According to McManus et al., the leader was the undercover female reporter who posed as a waitress to show the public what actually happened during the Club’s dinners. What does a good leader do in this context? Utilitarians might approve of these dinners. Some people (the waitresses) may not be happy but overall, utility is improved. If the reporter takes this perspective, then she should not write a harsh article about The Presidents Club. Perhaps she should not even write about it at all, as this threatens the Club’s practice and thus the yearly flow of money to children in dire need. Kantians will not approve of the dinners. The club members’ behaviour is reproachable, no matter how much money is raised for charity. If the reporter accepts this point of view, then she may write a harsh article about the dinner in the newspapers. The editors of Ethical Leadership: A Primer present this case as an example and they do not attempt to determine what the reporter should have done. I will now discuss one topic that is covered in this book and that I found of particular interest, namely Utilitarianism and its relation to ethical leadership. What sur- prised me in the relevant chapter was that the authors, Robert McManus and Alexandra Perry, did not distinguish between Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. According to the former, moral agents should perform the action that they expect to maximize utility. According to the latter, moral agents should perform the action that follows a rule that they expect to maximize utility, even if they know that a different action will generate more utility in a specific context. In my view, this omission is problematic. I think that readers of this book who are new to the systematic study of ethics will naturally have Act Utilitarianism in mind as they read the relevant chapter. I also think that Act Utilitarianism will strike them as exceedingly demanding in the sense that leaders will fear that they must calculate utility every second of the day and that they will not have time to do anything else. This fear might motivate readers to abandon the Utilitarian framework prematurely. Rule Utili- tarianism, on the other hand, allows ethical leaders to focus on a number of rules that they can reasonably expect to maximize utility in the long run. Focussing on these rules will not cause them to feel overwhelmed by the Utilitarian framework. Utilitarianism may have many flaws, but using Rule rather than Act Utilitarianism at least gives this view a fair run for its money. In the conclusion, the editors commit to a number of specific claims about ethical leadership. I discuss two of these here. First, McManus et al. insist that leaders should develop a “[…] suite of tools for handling complex leadership issues with a variety of ethical concerns” (373). There is no single ethical or leadership model that tells you what ethical leadership amounts to in every situation. I think this is exactly right, but I also think that the reader might ask: ‘when should I should use which tool(s)?’ McManus et al. provide a list of what they call ‘framing

— 544 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 book reviews questions’ that readers might use to answer this question (374). For example, if I am a leader and if I want to study myself and my ethical qualities, then I might be drawn to the following faming question: “What virtues should a leader possess to act ethically?” (374). The ethical model that comes with this question is virtue ethics. At the same time though, ethical egoism (the view that we all have only one moral obligation, which is to improve our own wellbeing) also focusses on the leader in the leadership process. Its framing question is “What is self-interested leadership?” (374). Well then, should I focus on virtue ethics or ethical egoism? My complaint is that this process feels like cherry-picking. Having read the book, it seems that I can justify being greedy and obnoxious in light of ethical egoism as long as I at least sometimes also consider the virtues such as being temperate and pleasant. Worse, as far as consistency is concerned, it looks as though I can choose to focus exclusively on ethical egoism. There is nothing in the book that obligates me to give equal consideration to the various ethical models, or to use some of these models, such as ethical egoism, sparingly. What the editors care about, or at least this is the sense I got when reading the book, is that aspiring ethical leaders develop various different tools for analysing ethical problems. Consequently, the leaders are ultimately free to choose which of these tools, or which tool, they want to use. I think that a bit more guidance on when to use which tools would have been helpful. Let’s delve into this issue a little deeper still. One response to what I have just said might be to insist that I make it seem as though being an ethical egoist is bad. After all, I complain that leaders may cherry-pick from the various ethical tools and that we must therefore fear that some leaders will favour ethical egoism and justify their greed. You might deny that ethical egoism is bad. After all, to mention just one aspect of the view, even if every individual ought to care just for their own wellbeing, individuals will still want to help others if other people’s wellbeing is part of their own wellbeing, which is usually the case. But note: my problem is not so much that we get too many ethical egoists in the new cohort of leaders. My problem is that it is very unlikely that one ethical model that one is attracted to (this may or may not be ethical egoism) will be the best model in every situation. In order to minimise the chance that leaders will pick the wrong ethical model for a given problem, I want them to have some guidance on which theory to use. It is this type of guidance I am missing in the book. Another response to my criticism might be that I am looking for guidance that cannot be found. For what I seem to want is some kind of checklist: does your leadership challenge have features x, y and z? Then use Kantianism. Or does your challenge have property p? In that case, consider using virtue ethics. You insist that this type of checklist is a chimera. Obviously, we cannot reduce the difficulty of our moral predica- ment and the complexity of ethical reality to a decision flowchart. But note: this is not my position. I do not want a fool proof decision procedure. I want a bit more guidance than just the claim that leaders should have a toolbox brimming with ethical tools, but that they must develop a ‘feel’ for when to use which tool largely independently. I am asking: how should leaders develop this ‘feel’? What are good and bad tools for which occasion?

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The second claim about ethical leadership that the editors accept concerns two specific requirements for ethical leadership. First, ethical leadership requires humility. As a leader, you must be receptive to feedback, be self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses, and in any case, humility is one of the main virtues in contemporary virtue ethics. Second, McManus et al. observe that “[…] ethical awareness often calls the leader to something beyond self-interest” (378). After all, even those leaders who adopt the perspective of the ethical egoist must be aware of the impact of their behaviour on others, and they must subsequently assess whether this impact is in their self-interest. In my view, this is again exactly right. Humility and the ability and willingness to go beyond self-interest are important properties of ethical leaders. But at the same time, I also think that this list of requirements should be (much) longer. How about the requirement that ethical leaders must have knowledge of the various ethical models on offer? Is there such a thing as ethical expertise, and if so, is ethical expertise merely procedural in the sense that ethicists know their theories and are better reasoners because they study logic, or is there even substantive ethical expertise in the sense that ethicists make morally better judgments than non-ethicists? And third, are there not specific contemporary challenges in leadership contexts that demand our attention? Con- sider inclusiveness as one of the many possible examples here. How do we ensure equal pay, equal access to meaningful work, and how do we minimise discrimination between colleagues? Again, I think that this list of “[…] components that seem be to be sine qua non for ethical leadership” should have included much more (378). Overall, this is a good introduction to ethical leadership. The main ethical theories are covered, there are many case studies and discussion questions, and the chapters are clearly written and informative. Wouter Kalf Universiteit Leiden

Samuel Moyn. Not Enough: Human Right in an Unequal World. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2018. 277 pp.

Samuel Moyn continues to inveigh against the recent developments about the idea of human rights in this new historical book, carefully developing the themes of his previous books on the matter. His first book on the subject launches a case against human rights as “[…] the highest moral precepts and political ideals” by questioning them “[…] as an agenda for improving the world,” an agenda he deemed a utopian programme. It was “utopian,” he said, because it “[…] draws on the image of a place that has not yet been called into being” (The Last Utopia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. 2010, 1). In that first book, accordingly titled The Last Utopia, he keenly observed how strikingly recently the human rights agenda had become widespread. Despite the beginnings of this agenda with the post-war Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), only in the late seventies did the prevalence of human rights language skyrocket – and only with President James Carter were human rights invoked, moreover, as a fundamental guiding principle for

— 546 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 book reviews the procedures of US foreign policy. A useful chart in the appendix to The Last Utopia (231) counted the mentions of ‘human rights’ in the New York Times and The Times, and it is instructive in showing how the moral world suddenly changed. Meanwhile, most books on human rights were concerned to trace its roots to late Scholasticism, the Roman lawyers, etc. –If not before. The book made a strong impression within and beyond academia, not simply because of the amazing scholarship involved, but because it was everything but a celebration. Most previous academic books about the UDHR were indeed celebratory of the ideal of human rights. It suffices to call to mind the narratives of, for example, Marc Agi (René Cassin, Prix Nobel de la paix, 1887-1976. Paris: Perrin, 1998), Mary Ann Glendon (A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House, 2001), or J. Morsink (Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), to mention just a few. Since 2010, Moyn has been rather prolific, hewing out and polishing gems from this hidden vein of human rights history. A few years after his first book, he published Human Rights and the Uses of History (London: Verso, 2014), a short but important work in his project, which collects essays that draw up a survey of the ‘spectacular wrongs’ committed in the name of human dignity. In the following year, his Christian Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015) addresses the role of Chris- tianity in the post-war period, emphasizing the limits of any universal moral creed. The ‘Epilogue’ of the book ends with one of those thoughtful remarks that serve as both a warning and a call to critical deliberation: “If the human rights movement does not improve states—or even the hearts of the men and women that Christianity at its most ambitious and inspiring promised to transform—it will demand replacement, in the name of its own ideals or some better ones” (181). The group of human rights discontents includes others than Moyn, of course, perhaps most notably Alasdair MacIntyre, who considers human rights to be among the unicorns and witches (1981), Michael Ignatieff who considers them as idolatry (2000), and Pierre Manent (2018), who argues that they necessarily result in the concealment of Natural Law. These discontents, however, have usually been deemed ‘conservatives’. Moyn’s membership in this group, however, has not been gained in that ‘conservative’ way. Instead, his very different rationale is demonstrated succinctly in the title of this his most recent book. His dissatisfaction with the contemporary human rights ideal is due to the fact that it is ‘not enough’. Despite the controversies that previously sur- rounded The Last Utopia, the author is clear enough in the Preface of this new book that he is still “unrepentant” about his main thesis. “The contemporary idealism of human rights,” he says, “was really as contingent in its formation and shallow in its roots as [he…] had tried to suggest [in The Last Utopia].” Moreover, he insists that he was right in “[…] placing stress on a North Atlantic revolution in moral sensibility, political rhet- oric, and nongovernmental advocacy in the 1970s—chiefly in response to authoritarian- ism in Latin America and totalitarianism in Eastern Europe” (x). But he now explains more clearly his dissatisfaction. Across modern history, the story of human rights has a number of tributaries into the often-turbid watercourse of two different imperatives, namely, sufficiency and equality: “Even when social rights

— 547 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 ethical perspectives – september 2019 have been given their due, the ideal of material equality has lost out in our time. Before the age of human rights came, dreams of equality were taken quite seriously, both nationally and globally. In the age of human rights, the pertinence of fairness beyond sufficiency has been forgotten” (3). The adversative character of these two imperatives shows up clearly in a chart contrasting the prominence of ‘human rights’ and ‘socialism’ as used in Anglophone book titles from 1800 to 2007 (182). This graph (generated via Google Books Ngram) shows an inverse relationship between the two terms. The face- value inference is that when the language of human rights became increasingly popular after the late seventies, that of socialism declined rapidly. The deeper inference is that the two imperatives tend to crisscross rather than run in peaceful integration. So while The Last Utopia could be summarized by the chart showing that the sky- rocketing references to ‘human rights’ unexpectedly peaked in 1977, the present book may be summarized by the chart that reveals the increasing success of human rights at the expense of socialism. The author himself describes the book as the “[…] story of how human rights came to the world amid the ruins of equality” (9). In a fuller yet somewhat apologetic statement, he remarks that “[…] as an intellectual and ideological history written out of dissatisfaction with mere sufficiency and committed to a more ambitious equality, what follows therefore pursues a dual agenda: It detects the ethical principle embedded in political action and the social imaginary, which thinkers often voice, and it also brings our ethics down to earth, showing how they exist in proximity to the politics that have inspired and obstructed them. There is no place to take sides about right and wrong except within history, as it rapidly changes from one day to the next. For the moment, at least, human rights history is worth telling because it reveals how partial our activism has become, choosing sufficiency alone as intractable crises in politics and economics continue to mount” (9-10). The book is organized around seven main periods, each with a chapter dedicated to it. Chapter 1, bearing the title “Jacobin Legacy: The Origins of Social Justice,” (12-40) goes back from the creation of the popular welfare state in 1941 to the deadliest and most violent period during the French Revolution. He presents it as a golden age in which ‘sufficiency’ or a minimum of provision were not yet separate from concerns about equality between individuals. This golden age was short lived, however, since Thomas Paine, who named his most famous book The Rights of Man in 1791, overtly expressed his commitment to sufficiency in 1796 (4). That “[…] the Jacobin synthesis of distributive sufficiency and equality” (29) implied tyrannical ruling makes us wonder how much we are ready to sacrifice for the sake of such a synthesis. Whatever the case, according to the author, the legacy of the Jacobin synthesis was always unstable and “John Rawls was the last Jacobin” (40). Chapter 2, “National Welfare and the Universal Declaration,” (41-67) begins with the famous lecture on the welfare state by T.H. Marshall, only to show that his naïve belief that “[…] there was no real choice between sufficiency and equality” (66) turned out to be an illusion contrived by the early momentum of National Welfare. In fact, it very quickly became clear that “[…] policies aiming at a social minimum not only began to falter as the postwar era wore on, but have sometimes proven compatible with the expansion rather than the reduction of material inequality” (66).

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In Chapter 3, “FDR’s Second Bill,” (68-88) the author summarizes the development of the American human rights ideal. He begins with Roosevelt’s wartime promises in his January 1944 speech, a speech in which Roosevelt presented already a new list of rights that “bears a tolerable resemblance to that consecrated years later in the Declara- tion of Human Rights” (69). The fulfilment of this programme quickly faded. The author shows how much things changed, to the point at which “[…] it became imagin- able to champion the New Deal nostalgically while really only proposing to humanize neoliberalism” leaving behind all promises (88). In Chapter 4, “Globalizing Welfare after Empire,” Moyn addresses a theme that was already at the centre of The Last Utopia, namely the lack of relationship between the end of the colonial empires and the incipient human rights movement. Chapter 5, “Basic Needs and Human Rights,” (119-145) is probably one of the most interesting sections in the book. It presents the set of ideas, policies, and interna- tional institutions that took us to the 1980s when “[…] human rights were far along in their transit from principles of an egalitarian welfare package for fellow citizens to aspirations of global sufficiency for fellow humans, and their early encounter with development thinking in general and a relatively minimalist interpretation of ‘basic needs’ in particular was lubricant for the slide” (145). The author emphasizes the contingency of such a change as a result of that “minimalist interpretation of ‘basic needs’.” He ascribes the genesis of this interpretation on the loss of the previous association of human rights and the national welfare state. In Chapter 6, “Global Ethics from Equality to Subsistence” (146-172), Moyn presents the itinerary of political philosophy in the years of the invention of global justice. So, the core of the text is fittingly devoted to the treatment of John Rawls, Charles Beitz, Peter Singer, and Henry Shue, among others. As one might guess, the author is discour- aged about “[…] the defense of equality in Beitz, as in Rawls before him” (172). His concern, which he couches in familiar poetic language, is that “[…] if [the defence of equality] did little more than let fly the owl of Minerva at dusk, what was its use?” (172). Chapter 7, almost unsurprisingly named “Human Rights in the Neoliberal Mael- strom” (173-211), is also unsurprisingly the longest in the book, but in the and it is little more than a detailed lamentation about our neoliberal age. Moyn, in the Conclusion, (212-220) thus attempts to demonstrate that “[…] human rights became our highest ideals only as material hierarchy remained endemic or wors- ened” (220). He nonetheless wonders (with that aforementioned partnership of warning and call to critical deliberation): “Could a different form of human rights law or movements correct for their coexistence with a crisis of material inequality? There is reason to doubt that they can do so by changing radically—for example by transforming into socialist movements” (218). Since there is no historical inevitability, the author finishes the book inferring a moral lesson for human rights defenders and activists: The staunch defence of human rights we find in the contemporary world emerged within a specific set of circumstances, namely, within “an unequal world” (220). How our political future will play out will depend on us looking for and employing resources that go beyond the boundaries of

— 549 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 ethical perspectives – september 2019 simply attaining equality. He says very poignantly, “Human rights will return to their defensible importance only as soon as humanity saves itself from its low ambitions” (ibid). If we take this challenge seriously, “[…] for the sake of local and global welfare, sufficiency and equality can again become powerful companions” (ibid). Few books risk the dive into the infinitude of sources needed to present almost one century of world history placing social and economic rights at centre stage, and even less are so pleasurable to read, or so full of interesting insights. However, even if it is unavoidable that every era rethinks its own past, the reader should not be oblivious to the fact that the author is writing this history with the dual agenda that he mentioned above (9-10), as well a third agenda, more political in character. Max Weber emphasized that the values that guide our historical research are always different from one generation to the next; Samuel Moyn clarifies in this book the values that should guide our generation. Moyn's Last Utopia is the most interesting book on the recent history of human rights. This volume is the most interesting challenge to recent human rights philosophy. J. A. Colen Universidad de Minho and University of Navarra Anthony S. Vecchio University of Texas at Arlington

Eviatar Zerubavel. Taken for Granted: The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. 160pp.

Zerubavel’s slim book deals, as its title says, with what is unmarked (‘default’) and marked in language and in the social world. As a matter of fact in the current US (etc.) social world, one speaks of ‘gay literature’, ‘black literature’, ‘women’s literature’: all marked. But one does not speak of ‘straight white men’s literature’, which is appar- ently simply ‘literature’: unmarked and default. As such, the unmarked also expresses social power (Zerubavel speaks of hegemony) and privilege, indeed privilege so deep that it is not even self-aware. For example “[…] many whites […] do not even view themselves as having a distinct ethnoracial identity” (57). Such, says Zerubavel, is the social power of the normal, the taken-for-granted. The notion of normality at work here has statistical elements (as Zerubavel shows among other things by noting how frequently certain expressions are found by Google), but in the end it is social and cultural, and it interestingly often reveals a ‘logic’ at work that is not so much dichot- omous or continuous but ‘bell curve-like’ (my expression): a ‘logic’ of an average with two extremes. The first half of Zerubavel’s book is devoted to showing – with many examples – how the power of the unmarked works. The second half, which may in the end be the most interesting, is about how to ‘subvert’ the power of the unmarked, the taken- for-granted. Basically, this can be done in two ways. One can either mark the unmarked or the other way round – unmark the marked. A marriage between a man and a woman can be referred to as a ‘straight marriage’ (40) or, alternatively, a marriage between two

— 550 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 book reviews women or two men simply as a marriage. The two strategies can also be combined: something like ‘toilets for all people, also non-disabled’ (my example). The book’s greatest strength probably lies in its very many examples – which mainly, but by no means only, have to do with gender, race and disability. It becomes somewhat less clear to me – although Zerubavel mentions some studies at the beginning of the book – to exactly which literature Zerubavel aims to speak, and just how innovative the book is or is not. The second half of the book may do the better job here, although many of its insights are, it seems to me, quite common in gender studies and cultural studies, for example. (As Zerubavel points out, a label such as ‘women’s studies’ is itself a clear example of marking [53]; there is no corresponding label of ‘men’s studies’.) Also, for philosophers of a certain flavour the way that Zerubavel treats his concepts may be too casual. One never gets an exact idea of what power, hegemony, social construction etc. mean. But this may be a puny complaint – or perhaps being casual about concepts is even a conscious choice by Zerubavel (he may hold, for example, that meaning is best elucidated by considering use), a choice which he does not aim to expli- cate in his book. I think, however, that a similar casualness is at times found on points in the analysis that should certainly matter – even if one is not a political philosopher or ethicist of a broadly analytic kind (just to mention where I myself come from). I’ll mention three points – which are in some ways related – in which the book’s theory may be too little developed; and for the first two points are points at which not only its theory but also (not unimportantly) its empirical testing may be too meagre. First, according to Zerubavel (who is a cognitive sociologist drawing a lot on semiotics) language plays a important role in constituting and changing social reality. But what role exactly? That language has some important role to play here is not exactly surprising, but it would be very interesting to explore this more precisely (acknowledging, obviously, that language itself is not an agent), and to explore it also in a way that goes beyond examples. Second, and relatedly, there may be limits to the role of language – as well as to the possibilities of subverting the power of the taken-for-granted. As Zerubavel remarks at the end of the book, “[…] the very distinction between the ‘special’ and the ‘ordinary’ is here to stay” (98). What, then, can one and can one not regard as potentially changeable through subversion? This is also important in order to establish clarity – and this is the third point – about the normative implications of Zerabuvel’s analysis. This may seem beyond a sociologist’s interests and competence, but it remains the case that a book such as Zerubavel’s has strong undertones of political correctness and claiming the moral high ground. It may be that no such thing is intended – but then it might be helpful to be explicit about what is (not) intended. Yet perhaps these remain to a certain extent (broadly analytic) philosopher’s criti- cisms of this book. Besides, it is clear that the book is a very personal book for Zerubavel. Not only does he show a certain (what I would call) hermeneutical awareness in the book’s preface, when he reflects on his own standpoint and how it may influence his perceptions of the ordinary and the special; but this even gets an ‘existential’ twist (my words again) when Zerubavel mentions his own health and how it has influenced his perceptions. So perhaps the book should be read more as a manifesto than as a

— 551 — Ethical Perspectives 26 (2019) 3 ethical perspectives – september 2019 systematic account of which one may reasonably expect, for instance, in-depth coverage of some of the above points. Zerubavel quotes Proust: “[…] ‘the only true voyage of discovery’ may well be ‘not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes’ and thereby ‘find surprises lurking [even] in ostensibly obvious observations’” (68). And indeed, the book’s examples may, as said, in the end be the most valuable, and some of them might come back to me at expected and unexpected moments in my life. I would like to add one example that Zerubavel himself does not give but of which he made me think. Why it is that we mark ‘fair’ trade, while the other (‘unfair’?) trade is just left unmarked? What does this say about fairness in trade? There may, finally, be lessons to be learnt from Zerubavel’s book for (broadly) analytic political philosophy and ethics. Zerubavel’s emphasis on social power and hegemony is potentially wholesome for discourses that are frequently (although by no means always) concerned with construing normative ideals of justice etc. And his emphasis on the social functioning of language and cognition – although this too is certainly not new and can draw inspiration from authors as diverse as, say, Wittgenstein, Habermas and Foucault – can also be helpful, for at least two reasons. Firstly, insights into the way language and cognition function socially can help philosophers better understand what individual and social action is actually motivated by. Secondly, this may help to develop and further refine accounts of practical rationality (and related subjects), which set their sights neither too high nor too low. Very generally, adequate accounts should, on the one hand, avoid declaring all arguments, beliefs, attitudes etc. in which the taken-for- granted plays any role as somehow irrational. On the other hand, there would have to be some ways of involvement of the unmarked and/or marked that would make arguments, beliefs etc. in some way irrational. Zerubavel’s book can help to further develop such accounts. This, then, is a further merit of the book, and one that seems particularly important in times of great impact of the social media, turbulent politics, and urgent social problems. Jos Philips Utrecht University

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