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Home , Moral relativism

116 Book Reviews / Journal of Moral 10 (2013) 101–119

Peter A. French, War and Moral Dissonance, (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 360 pages. ISBN: 0521169038. Paperback: £21.99.

Peter French’s book “War and Moral Dissonance” consists of a series of essays, fol- lowing a startling memoir. In the memoir, he relates his experiences teaching to Navy chaplains at bases and camps around the world, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This personal retelling is engrossing and moving – as the war in Iraq and Afghanistan unraveled between 2004 and 2006, so did the mental states of the chaplains French taught. The subsequent chapters concern topics in which the chaplains and French were most engaged. These topics have very little philo- sophically in common – many have nothing directly to do with war. For this reason, the book delivers unevenly on the promise suggested by its title. For example, in chapter 3, French focuses on the loss of moral innocence in the formative experi- ences of children, and the role it plays in their development as moral agents. In chapter 5, he investigates whether there is a moral analogous to the aesthetic virtue of originality. In chapter 8, French argues that a life confined to a cyber- such as Second Life can be worthwhile. Though he briefly grounds these discussions in his experiences teaching the chaplains (chapter 8, for example, is based on an actual Marine from severe injuries who found psychological refuge in Second Life) readers interested in and expecting discussion of issues per- taining directly to the of war will be disappointed by these chapters. The remaining nine chapters, however, have more to do with issues pertaining directly to war; I will discuss them in greater depth. Chapter 2 is a discussion of and human nature, ranging from a critical analysis of Biblical claims (French’s knowledge of which is encyclopedic) to a discussion of iterated prisoners dilemmas and the compatibility of instrumental rationality with . It is a rare delight to read someone who is as comfortable citing Stephen Darwall, Peter Strawson, and Judith Thomson, as he is citing , Kao Tzu, and Xunzi. Much of the force of his discussion of evil, however, is undermined by his apparent support of moral in chapters five and nine. In chapter 4, French discusses mercy, forgiveness, and retributive punishment as responses to the various types of evil taxonomized in chapter 2. He grounds this discussion by citing an historical example of a Nazi war-criminal who sought for- giveness for his . French plausibly emphasizes the of negative reactive attitudes, and convincingly argues that forgiveness of malevolent, unde- served harms risks diminishing the respect of those who are wronged. In chapter 6, French argues that public honor, properly conceived, involves acting in accordance with standards following from one’s social station, whereas personal honor involves the internalization of these standards. This account helps elucidate the normative implications of the highly stratified social structure in

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI 10.1163/17455243-01001006 Book Reviews / Journal of Moral Philosophy 10 (2013) 101–119 117 which military personnel operate, by grounding it in conceptions of public and personal honor. In chapter 7, French discusses actual incidences of torture under the Bush administration, and critically assesses attempts to morally and legally justify the administration’s policy of ‘enhanced interrogation’. French then advances a unique and compelling argument against torture: it is evil not merely because it inflicts harm or thwarts the victim’s will, but because it reduces the victim to a ‘wanton’ – the victim is deprived of appreciable second order desires, thereby ceasing to be a full-fledged person. Chapters 9, 10, 11, and 13 are loosely related in that they all concern collective ethics, and invoke French’s three decades of work on corporate responsibility. Chapter 9 carries metaethical baggage – French states, without much argument, that all moral are permissions given by institutions. An implication seems to be that institutions are not bounded by any morality independent of that which they construct. This reflects his support, in chapter 5, of J. L. Mackie’s moral anti- realism: “we may think that our moral are institution transcendent… but that is a presupposition failure” (p. 138). French’s commitment to anti-realism in chapters 5 and 9 precludes the extra-institutional judgment that it is morally wrong for an institution to permit evil. The only extra-institutional judgment that can be leveled against such an institution is that it makes a prudential error in permitting evil. This is problematic for French, since it robs ‘evil’ of the fundamental norma- tive force which seemed to motivate French’s lengthy discussion of evil in chapter 2. Perhaps a version of ’s ‘Quasi-Realism’ can resolve this tension – but French makes no such attempt in his book. French continues his discussion of institutions in chapter 10, in which he argues plausibly that judgments about organizations (such as the Marines) cannot be inferred from judgments about the institutions that they embody (such as the mili- tary). These ‘inference gaps’ are pervasive – judgments about particular branches of an organization cannot be inferred from judgments about the organization; mutatis mutandis for judgments about individuals and the organization in which they operate. Drawing on his formidable body of work on corporate responsibility, French argues that organizations qua organization exhibit intentionality and can be judged accordingly; it seems, though, that the inference gaps themselves do not presuppose a denial of methodological . Chapter 11 moves from moral judgments about institutions and organizations, to judgments of blame about collectives in general. He grounds the chapter’s inves- tigation of collective blame by discussing how we can make sense of the claim that, “the American population is to blame for the unjust war in Iraq”. After discussing moral and non-moral versions of blame, and the relevance of the challenge pre- sented by Frankfurt-counterfactuals, he argues that collectives qua collectives can be blameworthy, and that group fault is not necessarily distributive.