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Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 170
EAN: 9780151011971
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0151011974
Label: Harcourt
Manufacturer: Harcourt
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 480
Publication Date: May 05, 2008
Publisher: Harcourt
Studio: Harcourt
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Editorial Review:
Susan Neiman is a moral philosopher committed to making the tools of her trade relevant to real life. In Moral Clarity, she shows how resurrecting a moral vocabulary—good and evil, heroism and nobility—can steer us clear of the dogmas of the right and the helpless pragmatism of the left. In search of a framework for forming clear opinions and taking responsible action on today’s urgent political and social questions, Neiman reaches back to the eighteenth century, retrieving a set of virtues—happiness, reason, reverence, and hope—that were held high by every Enlightenment thinker. She shows that the pursuit of moral clarity is not a matter of religious faith but is open to all who are committed to these ideals, believers and nonbelievers alike. And she draws on literature, evolutionarytheory, and other contemporary research to show why, by keeping before us the distinction between the real and the possible, these ideals continue to guide and inspire.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A good insight into Islamist fundamentalism
I have not finished Neiman's book yet, but want to make a point about her insight into Islamist fundamentalism, found in chapter 3. I lived in the Muslim world for four years and maintain strong ties with it, and I believe Neiman's take on a motivation for devoting one's life to fundamentalist ideas is right. Neiman claims that a desire for both transcendence and freedom (self-determination) underlies much fundamentalism. Moreover, this desire arises against the backdrop of a materialistic world ... Read More
Rating: - Philosophy as good as it gets
Susan Neiman's newest book, Moral Clarity--A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists, finds itself in the noblest tradition of philosophy, offering not ready-made answers, but clear and rational guidelines in the use of our own critical judgment in a never-ending attempt to achieve goodness within, through, and despite the human condition. And the book couldn't have appeared at a more critical moment in US history.
Much as Kant examined the role of reason in effecting human progress, Neiman points to our ... Read More
Rating: - The world can be improved
I will try to be as clear as the title: this book has as central thesis that the world we live in can and should be improved. There is abundant evidence showing that this has happened many times but there are no guarantees that we will continue to improve. There is always the risk that the world we live in will get worse. Given these circumstances, all human beings are called to give their small, medium or large contribution for the improvement of the world.
The thesis may seem relatively ... Read More
Rating:  - Simplistic and snide
One of the other reviewers says this is not an easy book to read. Yes and no. It is easy to read in that it is not terribly prolix or turgid, and the philosophical terms and expressions are kept to a minimum. But it is deeply frustrating to read because it is both slapdash and "of two minds." What I mean is that Neiman tells us that she has written a book intended to resurrect the idea of the hero, and to defend some of the suppositions often taken to underpin the Enlightenment. (Disclaimer: I have sympathy ... Read More
Rating: - A defense of political, not classical, liberalism
I read much of this book hoping for a defense of classical liberalism. Instead, I found a series of attacks on Bush and a defense of political liberalism. To discuss historical moral philosophy, Neiman should have looked to Aristotle, Plato and Pascal rather than limit herself largely to Enlightenment philosophers.
I hoped for an informed discussion of how to make moral judgments about conflicting values and distinctions independent of political ties. Instead, I found leftist views consistently ... Read More
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