Simon Blackburn

A very nice and very brief summary of various philosophical understandings of morality and ethics.

A funny thing though: I was offended and puzzled when I started the book, on page 2, by a comment from the author about a "professional survivor of the nazi concentration camps" that he met on a TV talk show. I don't know quite WTF he meant by that. He might have conceivably only wanted to point out that the man was some sort of professional, as well as being a camp survivor. But why would anyone care? I assume it was really intended as a slur - an accusation that the man had actually made a profession out of being a survivor. If so, I think it was a shockingly rude thing to say. Maybe there's some third explanation that I'm missing? At any rate, I was really on my guard after reading that, but nothing else in the book seemed to me to be rude or bigoted or disrespectful, so I don't know what to make of it...… (mehr)

Some very useful insights, but felt the author could be a little too harsh at times, interpreting Plato too much at face value and from a strictly materialistic point of view, in the manner of Bertrand Russell. There were some mistakes in my view too, such as Blackburn's assertion that Plato proposed a caste system. This would imply that there was no movement within the tripartite system from one class to another, whereas Plato specifically says that bronze or silver-souled parents could give birth to a gold-souled child. Likewise, gold-souled parents could give birth to silver or bronze-souled children. In any case, Blackburn falls too readily for the idea that Plato is putting forward a blueprint for a utopian society, rather than provoking the reader into thinking for himself / herself.… (mehr)