Making Sense: Philosophy behind the headlines. - book review

Humanist, March-April, 2003 by Fred Edwords

by Julian Baggini Oxford, England and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002); 296 pp; $26.00 cloth.

in the Monty Python sketch involving a soccer match between famous Greek philosophers and German philosophers, when the whistle is blown, the overly intellectual opponents commence walking about, stroking their beards instead of kicking the ball. "Such is the stereotype of the impractical philosopher," says the author of this entertaining and useful book.

But philosophy, in truth, can be both practical and relevant. This book proves the point as it puts philosophy to work sorting out the major questions that underlie such current issues as cloning, euthanasia, abortion, genetically modified foods, the war on terrorism, and human rights. By understanding elemental philosophical problems and how to address them, one is better able to analyze what is encountered in the news. This, in turn, allows one to pursue the facts that most matter in determining what stand to take on a given social issue.

In showing this, Julian Baggini unexpectedly (and apparently unintentionally) provides the best popular primer I've seen on the foundations of humanist thought. Let me take you through some of his book to show you what I mean.

In the first chapter, in which he helps the reader analyze propaganda, the author addresses the problem of knowledge. Is there such a thing as objective truth? He answers this by first demolishing the sort of "crude relativism" that's become fashionable of late--the view that everything we believe is so culturally biased that all we can ever say is that this or that is "true for me." Baggini writes:

   Ask yourself if you could believe the following:
   it is true for some people that six million
   people were killed in the holocaust but
   it is not true for others. It is no more true to
   say that the world is spherical than it is to
   say it is flat. The view that there is life after
   death and that death is the end are both
   equally true.

Such an approach, he argues, would require suspension of all judgment on everything and the complete abandonment of rational discourse.

But this isn't to maintain there is some ascertainable source of objective truth of which we may be absolutely certain. Indeed, "experience should tell us that certainty is often inversely proportionate to knowledge. The fanatic who believes without question is wrong more often than the sceptic who feels certain about nothing." So then, what is the solution? Baggini brings forth the concept of abduction introduced by American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. It means "argument to the best explanation." Baggini develops this further with standards proposed by David Hume and others.

Knowing how it is that we can know anything makes it possible to move on to ethics. And this is where Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky come in. Baggini explores the ethical questions embedded in any political sex scandal--questions that need to be answered before it's possible to arrive at a reasonable moral judgment. First, "do the parties involved have a right to have their private affairs kept private or is the public entitled to know about them?" Second, "do the parties involved have a right to behave as they wish in their personal lives, without that affecting their right to hold office or remain employed?" Baggini provides a set of useful guidelines for sorting out the reasonable extent and limit to each of the rights and responsibilities involved. In doing so, he explains general principles of ethics and how to apply them, in both social and personal contexts.

As the book progresses, the reader is also able to learn about freedom and its limits, different concepts of equality, pacifism and just war theory, ways to determine harm to the environment, the problem of assigning value, the issues of faith versus reason as well as "cults" versus established religions, and arguments for establishing the validity of science. In the end, the basic grounds for a humanist outlook and its approach to issues are explained, without being so named. Furthermore, the job is so well done that this becomes a handy volume one can give to humanist-leaning or even nonhumanist friends and feel confident they will find its points easy to understand and perhaps even persuasive. I, therefore, highly recommend Baggini's book.

Fred Edwords is editor of the Humanist.