Issue No.
26
July 2009
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| Welcome to July’s Review of Books |
 Tim Black
This month’s spiked review of books is devoted to the question of human-centred morality, or rather the lack of it today. Susan Neiman, author of Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, tells us that philosophy, for too long a haughty and overly abstract academic pursuit, must rediscover its purpose of ‘enlarging a sense of what is possible in the world’. Jennie Bristow is impressed by a book published on the one-hundredth birthday of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which, while not providing all of the answers to today’s moral malaise, at least asks the right questions about the role of individuation and therapy culture in shrinking the sense of human possibilities. Dolan Cummings, meanwhile, offers a defence of a man now seen as an outdated and severe moralist yet whose thinking helped to shape the modern world: John Calvin. We also have Sean Collins on A-Rod, Daniel Ben-Ami on anti-consumerist overload, Rob Lyons on scepticism, and much more. Enjoy! [Cover illustration by Jan Bowman.] |
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