Eric Lawton reviewed Experiments in Ethics by Anthony Appiah
Review of 'Experiments in Ethics' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
This is my second third time reading this book and it won't be the last. Pages are full of stickies to remind me of important points. Now with more stickies.
Good for most readers. I found it interesting reading throughout, with much light shed by the "experiments" part, that shed light on how people actually think about ethical and moral issues (in addition to how they say they think about them), while Appiah also points out how the experiments need to be augmented by thinking and not just in the same way as the hard(er) sciences reason about their experiments and observations but also using some traditional and more recent philosophical techniques.
The book also serves to answer the accusations that philosophy makes no progress (because we still teach Plato, Kant,...). There are plenty of examples of new thinking here.
If you are only ever going to read one or …
This is my second third time reading this book and it won't be the last. Pages are full of stickies to remind me of important points. Now with more stickies.
Good for most readers. I found it interesting reading throughout, with much light shed by the "experiments" part, that shed light on how people actually think about ethical and moral issues (in addition to how they say they think about them), while Appiah also points out how the experiments need to be augmented by thinking and not just in the same way as the hard(er) sciences reason about their experiments and observations but also using some traditional and more recent philosophical techniques.
The book also serves to answer the accusations that philosophy makes no progress (because we still teach Plato, Kant,...). There are plenty of examples of new thinking here.
If you are only ever going to read one or very few books on ethics, I think this should be on your list.
For professional philosophers, there are arguments in here that demolish famous theories and that shed more light on the is/ought boundary (naturalistic fallacy). Appiah writes very much in the Anglo/American tradition.