Appiah, K: Experiments in Ethics

he argues, have productive consequences for both areas of thought. London Review of Books 20080221 In writing this inspiring book, Appiah has done a good thing. -- Sacha Molitorisz Sydney Morning Herald 20080222 Sensible, informed and highly readable...Illuminating and important. The book is a model for how to do empirically informed moral philosophy. -- Anthony Skelton Globe and Mail 20080301 Experiments in Ethics is erudite, concise and engagingly written. Appiah assesses that experimental science is relevant to the enterprise of normative ethics, and that the relation between the two, although complex, need not be antagonistic. -- Nick Bostrom Nature 20080529 Appiah has produced an elegant and well-written volume at the intersection of psychology and moral philosophy. Appiah presents a reasonable case that philosophy traditionally has been informed by scientific inquiry, and should continue to welcome it; but at the same time he is clear that the questions of moral philosophy are not themselves scientific questions. -- S. Satris Choice 20080801 This engaging book surveys influential recent attempts to bring empirical studies to bear specifically on moral philosophy, in a style that is accessible to non-specialists yet philosophically nuanced. Professor Appiah is sympathetic to the idea that moral philosophy has a good deal to learn from experimental work, but skeptical of the suggestion that this approach constitutes a radical departure from the philosophical tradition. He begins with a fascinating and erudite characterization of philosophy as a discipline that only "calved off" from psychology around the beginning of the twentieth century. Until then, experimental works and empirical investigation ("natural philosophy") were interwoven with metaphysical theorizing and deductive argumentation, and psychology was only just becoming a distinct academic discipline in its own right. Trying to distinguish metaphysical from psychological elements in the work of such canonical figures of European philosophy as Plato and Aristotle, Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume and J. S. Mill, Appiah claims, is like "trying to peel a raspberry." -- Justin D'Arms Times Literary Supplement 20090306 One of our most imaginative writers on topics like culture, values, and individual identity...[Appiah] is a philosopher but one not bound by any disciplinary straitjacket; he succeeds in what he does by inviting his readers to stand back with him from the preoccupations of any particular style of theorizing...The lightness of his style...together with his determination to make analytic moral philosophy the topic rather than the method of his study, has given us a wry and engaging account of the challenge that psychology poses to ethics. -- Jeremy Waldron New York Review of Books 20091008