Philosophy in Review/Comptes rendus philosophiques Volume XXIII, No. 1 February ¢ février 2003 Gernot Bohme Ethics in Contest. pages 1-3 ‘Trans. Edmund Jepheott. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag 1997 (cloth); Malden, MA: Polity Press 2001 (paper). Pp. vii + 189. 'U859.95 (cloth: rsa 0.7456-2654-6); TS$28.96(pa- per: ISBN 0-7456-2630-4) (1) {PIhilosophical ethies, Gernot Bohme worries, is in danger of beeoming ‘an arcane meta-ethies ... a professional game for specialists in ethical discourse’ (163; see also 1-7). Hence Bonme'’s aim: to ‘drag ethics out of ontological, analytical, and meta-cthieal discourse and place it radically within reality’ 106) Soswoepingly stated, Bohme makes it easy to misgauge his concern. After all, contemporary academic ethies comprises more than ‘meta-ethical stud- ios G.c, treatments of ‘the structure of deontic statements... the speech-act ‘of imperatives... and the possibility of moral arguments’ (23) We need only type ‘abortion’ ‘adultery, or‘lamine’ into the Philosopher's Index to turn up ‘wealth of non-“metarethical treatments of (fT may) ‘radieelly real norma- tive matters But Bohme's worry is more subtle — and plausible. Academic ethies? practice, Bohme charges, ‘dces not have to affect the philosopher, or his listeners, atthe personal level at all (2).On tits point, Bohme will find alos. “Traditional ethies courses, Judith Boss laments, ‘avoid any attempt to make students better people ... (Sltudents are able to memorkze theories ... lang enough to pass the final exam ... [but wlhon confronted with real-life moral issues, most students simply revert back w their earlier forms of reasoning based on cultural norms or self. interest (thics For Life (Toronto: Mayfield 2001}, vi). The challenge ethics instructors face is to surmount let's cal i) the undergraduate irony. North American studonts pay boundless verbal homage to the perceived virtue of being unique" snd ‘expressing onesel?; yot {in considering moral questions, few students progress beyond parroting slogans imparted by popular culture (Irthey're not hurting anyone, who's to say they're doing something wrong?) If Hehme has found a way to press students toward a more reflecive ethical plane, then he will have dispatched a very vexing bugbear, indeed. I) But of course, the devi! lurks in the details, In Bohme’s terminology, ‘academic ethics fails to enable students to appreciate, and confront, moral questions — where, by his definition, a 'mocal question’ engenders ‘serious: ness... (ie, the conviction that how the question is decided) decides what kkind of person I am, or what kind of society we live in (183; 105). The former Auestions are those of individnal-ethies (74-114), and the Inttar bolong to socialethies (115-62). Moreover, insofar as my actions are tacitly ‘pushed along’ or ‘regulated by customary practices’ (75), then those actions fail to reflect what kind of person Lam ‘save, perhaps, that Pm the ‘kind of person’ who mortgages: my agency in favor of doing what (ether people dc’ [18].(A) Contingent upon articulating what constitutes ‘seriousness’, the fore- going account might seem plausible enough. Yet Bohmo marshals his defi tion to narrow, sirikingly, the scope of rightful moral inquiry. ‘Honesty’, Bohme declares, ‘is not of central interest toa philocophy of ethies. Why not? Because it is ‘customary to tell the truth’ (19). Yet this inference is unsound on two points. First: if‘customary’ means ‘what [most] people do' (18), then Bohme’s premise has looming exceptions. In the United States, for instance, internet-aided plagiarism hes sadly become an increasingly prominent prob- em. (Ironically, part of the reason students are less repelled by the practice's dishonesty is precisely because such plagiarism is increasingly ‘what many students do’.) Moreover, Bobme’s conclusion fails to follow from his premise; for the mere fact that truth-telling is‘customary’ doesn't entail that a chance tolie won't engender self-searching seriousness. Witness Roasseau’s famous account of the pilfered ribbon (Confessions, Book 2), or poet Adrienne Rich's remarks on lies’ ‘serious’ effects (Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying’ in her Poetry and Prose [New York: WW Norton 1993). Bshme offers further, off-hand, dismissals: of sexual morality (“The value placed on virginity ... [kept] the birth-rate relatively low. ... [So] contracep- tion ... has made sexual morality largely superfluous’ (27-81), of euthanasia (which ‘has nothing to do with individual morality, but is concerned with social regulation’ (10]), and of fidelity (18-9), Unsurprisingly, the arguments for banishing these topics from philosophical inquiry — when, that is, arguments are offered — rest upon similar flaws as the grounds for dismiss- ing honesty. (B) Now then: just what is this'seriousness’ Bohme appeals to? The notion echoes Kierkegaard; so, unsurprisingly, ‘the concept cannot be defined’ (104), ‘Then again, a glimmer of elucidation appears in the offing when Bohme ties ‘seriousness’ to the Greek concept of areté — of ‘being-human-well’ (13, 58) Matters ‘become serious’, we might say, if our being-human-well is at stake in how we decide such matters, Unfortunately, Bohme quickly drains the definiens of potential content by rejecting areté's classie articulation; the result i a tight circle: ‘bleing-human-well... [is] an endeavor to engage fully in being human and to disown nothing which forms a part of it’ (89), (©) Bohme’s closing chapter treats social ethics, defined as matters which ‘decide ... what kind of society we live in — or how we understand society’ (163), Bohme’s choice of issues could hardly be faulted: abortion (196-41), genetic engineering (141-8), and the rights of citizenship and asylum (150-6), Yet these issues’ treatments are disappointing, Each discussion is long on summary of international conventions (the Geneva Convention; the UNESCO Convention on bioethies), or national law (§218 of the German Penal Code), at the expense of considered articulation of moral principles, and evaluation of arguments. (ID It's unclear what audience Bohme envisions for this text. By his own Tights, it ean’t serve as a text for students or laypersons; for it trades in the selfeame ‘specialists’ ’ reasoning about ethical judgments which Bihme lambastes. The text's poverty of argument, however, makes it ill-suited foracademics. This is unfortunate; for Béhme indeed diagnoses a significant malady attaching to contemporary ethics-education. Yet his preseription for rehabilitating ethics is, for the most part, opaquely expressed ‘Humen beings are entities in whose existence their being is at stake’ (111)); and on the occasions where clarity reigns, the cure Bohme recommends threatens ta thin moral inquiry’s scope to a skeleton of its former self. ‘Timothy Chambers Brown University