That is exactly the problem with those books that try to cover so many philosophical theories in so few pages. They do zero justice to the complexities of the arguments and make them seem dumb.

My version of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is 66 pages long. Do you think, if Kant could have explained his position in the space of a few paragraphs, he would have bothered writing the other 65 pages? No, he wouldn't (add to that, the Groundwork ... is just one of Kant's works on morals and you start to see how much is needed to understand just one philosopher's position on this let alone the whole field).

Like it or not, if you want to get an understanding of philosophy you need to read the complete unabridged texts of the key works in the specific field of philosophy you are interested in. There is no way around it.

According to your review your book discusses 'Why be moral?' without referrence to Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Popper, Locke, Mill, Descartes, to name but a few. In fact he only references 3 philosophies. He has his own agenda in choosing that particular 3. In a study of philosophy those books are worse than useless.

Your man seems to ignore the fundamental argument as to what Kant's moral 'ought' is grounded on. Kant was not stupid enough to forget to tie up the loose end of why logical consistency is inescapably necessary. He was wrong, but he did give an answer to that question.


Like I said before you will need to do some serious study to get to a position where you are conversant with the topic enough to even begin to think about proposing a submissible answer to a question like 'Why be moral?', or to even recognise a good answer to that question. Even then you'd have to write a few thousand words just to get a mere aroma of your theory in an acceptable form for it to enter the vast body of work on the subject and have even the slimest chance of standing up to the level of scrutiny it would then be exposed to.

I could go total sophist on you all. Pick some position, even at random, and argue you all down because it is a skill that you hone over years of being a philosopher. As you need to dig at all works, especially your own so you create them to be robust, as that is exactly what will happen to them once other philosophers get their hands on them. It wouldn't make it true and another decent philosopher would tear such an argument to shreds.

You're better off starting with some basic philosophical assumptions, e.g. morals are subjective, and looking for the foundation of morals in biology and psychology. Rather than trying to work up to those assumptions.

Philosophy is my thing, it consumes me I needed to know, so I went to those depths because only the total and exclusive application of the scientific method of knowledge acquisition would satisfy that. On the other hand quantum physics interests me, fascinates me, I find it fun and exciting, but it doesn't consume me. So there is much of my knowledge in this area that has been acquired through the method of authority. I don't get the maths for starters. So I just have to accept what I'm being told or I'd have to get much more involved than I'm motivated to.

So here you are and you have to make a decision. How much do you really care about this question?

If this question is not keeping you awake at night, driving you to read and write at all hours and to have 'forgotten all customs of exercise' as Hamlet puts it (that's stop washing, eating, dressing, maintaining relationships etc. to you and I), then relax accept that there is a reason to be moral because an authority tells you there is (and because it doesn't matter as you want to be moral anyway) and get on with the much more accessible subject of how to be moral.


Peace,

kowalski