Reviews for A naturalistic theory of justice

The average rating for A naturalistic theory of justice based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-11-06 00:00:00 Sandra Narowitz So I've got to be honest, I got about 53% through the kindle version of this book (I'm guessing there are a lot of footnotes so I'm probably more like 75%) and then got distracted by things like, oh... a life, my job, etc. Its been sitting on my shelf (well, in my kindle) 1/2 read for about 2 years and every time I turn towards it with the intent of finishing it I just can't see the point. I kind of feel like I already have a good sense of where she's going with this and am not in the mood for another X# of pages of her patting herself on the back for how erudite she is, no matter how much fun. And there are so many other books I need to read first... So this review is really based on a 1/2 read of the thing...that said... If you, like me, are an unabashed member of the intelligentsia, you will enjoy this book; if you're not, odds are you'll get bogged down in the text, loose track of the discussion and ultimately just give it up as a disorganized mess... which it essentially is (but then again so is a delicious plate of spaghetti with meatballs). I'm not speaking to whether you'll agree or disagree with her arguments, just whether or not you'll enjoy the ride. A student once approached Hillel, one of the greatest Rabbi's of the Jewish tradition, and asked him to explain the essential meaning of the Torah while standing on leg. He, standing on one leg, responded, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn" and then walked away. In the case of this book, it comes down the Gordon Gekko quote, "Greed, for a lack of a better word, is good; Greed works.".... This essential message is, however, delivered by the author in an over 500 page stream of consciousness, with high-fa-luting language, and an elitist discussion of the title topic with a boatload of detail (historically and cross culturally), with some tongue in cheek sardonic (we're all in this club together so we can make fun of it) humor thrown in for good measure. (I.e., with about as much brevity as the Talmud itself.) -- It really isn't until about chapter 3 that she starts getting into some hard discussion of of the different values and the roles they play in capitalist culture, but she does from time to time get into some substantive stuff And you GOT to love the name dropping she does in the first chapter of who all her famous friends are (verification of her intelligentsia, membership in the in-crowd so she has the right to comment on them, status). The author --in her stream of consciousness style -- references most of the major works of anthropology, social economics, philosophy, popular historians, and great British writers ... running on the assumption that you the reader (as a well read westerner and a fellow member of the Bourgeois -- as only they have the time or interest to read such a book) -- of an English speaking country --- have read all the same works she has, to the extent of her referencing the actions of Emma Woodhouse by name (a Jane Austin character) and assuming you know the story -- with the same neighborliness you might reference something a mutual friend did without bothering to explain the details because of course as friends and peers you already know what she's talking about. As such, if you are NOT highly educated in the sense of a traditional classical education (and most Americans these days really aren't... I've actually had fellow educators look at me as some kind of freak for getting a high score on a E.D. Hirsch cultural literacy test that the reset of them bombed, which they therefore jokingly referred to as idiosyncratic and not relevant to the America of today), you're kind of screwed when it comes to having ANY idea what the author is talking about... As such, this book is essentially preaching to the choir. The only folks who would be able to make it through her prose are the same folks who already belong to not only the Bourgeois social group -- but in fact a subgroup of that group which she herself refers to as the intelligentsia/eggheads, etc, and hence, because this is our group, we will of course agree with most of what she has to say. Granted I'm one of them (and I'm getting a perverse joy from the book for that reason), but I'm fully aware in reading it that there's something wonderfully masturbatory about it. As such, I'm not sure if agree with her or not, but I'm enjoying the ride.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-12-29 00:00:00 Carlos Hurtado McCloskey writes an apology for capitalism. Not an argument that capitalists are without vice (the world is fallen, and no one is without vice), but that capitalism is not, as it has too often been defined, greed incarnate, an inherent vice. Capitalism, on the whole, is supportive of virtue. Virtue is, in the long-term, “smart business.” Ethically speaking, “dealing” (capitalism) is better than “stealing” (communism, socialism, imperialism, bribe-soaked bureaucracy). As Churchill said of democracy, capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others that have been tried. But it isn’t just the left that gets capitalism wrong. It’s the right too: “They believe that capitalism and profit are good for business but have nothing to do with ethics, that the poor should shut up and settle for what they get…They think Jesus got it all wrong in the Sermon on the Mount.” Those in the middle don’t quite have it right either: they believe in the “laughably nonethical character of capitalism.” Even McCloskey’s publisher laughed out loud at his suggested title, “Bourgeois Virtue.” It’s time to treat the bourgeois more fairly, McCloskey thinks, time to examine how capitalism works, and works “pretty well,” not just as an economic system, but as a system that makes the practice of virtue possible, and, indeed, often preferable. The primary bourgeois virtues, according to McCloskey, are love, faith, hope, courage, temperance, prudence, and justice. (Sounds more like the fruits of the spirit than the fruits of any economic system to me…but her point is that capitalism does not discourage these virtues and more often rewards them than not.) I stopped reading the book partway through, not because it is particularly poorly written, but because I don’t really need to be convinced of her argument, and her work isn't clearly organized enough to enable me to use it to convince others of her argument. She throws in a few too many names that may cause the eyes of some readers to glaze over, and she relies too heavily on the work of and direct quotes from others. The length alone may make the tome tedious for almost anyone (and this is but the first of four planned volumes!). Her tone is moderate, almost friendly. Because I haven’t finished it, it wouldn’t be fair of me to say that she does not support her argument well enough, but so far I get the impression she does not. I suspect Adam Smith did a much better job in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (of intellectually defending his position, that is, not of writing; his prose is beyond tedious). What she seems to be defending is not an unregulated capitalism, but the mostly unhampered freedom to trade, make an honest living, and, for the most part, to enjoy the fruits of one’s own labor—without being criticized or demeaned for doing so. She is defending the bourgeois from those who paint them as greedy or vapid, by showing capitalism to be a system that actually more readily encourages virtue than socialism, communism, or any other economic system. She does not seem to be doing this in any systematic way, however, and there isn’t enough economics in the book for my taste. It is really more philosophy than economics.