An Ethics for Today

November 15, 2010

Rorty, who died in 2007, delivered this piece as a lecture at the University of Turin in September 2005, confronting the view of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, that a dictatorship of relativism threatens civilization. To the contrary, Rorty claims, those who agree with Ratzinger wrongly seek to anchor their ethical ideals in a supposed world that exists beyond our ordinary human world, thus carrying forth a program that has beguiled philosophers since Plato. Instead, says Rorty, we should view our ideals as aspirations rather than vainly seek a guarantee for them in an underlying structure of the world. Likewise in error is the quest for secure foundations for knowledge. Instead, following William James and John Dewey, we should be guided by what works in practice. Religion can be pursued as a private vision or practice, but to inject it into the public sphere is dangerous. The book includes an introduction by Gianni Vattimo (philosophy, Univ. of Turin), a foreword by Jeffrey Robbins (religion & philosophy, Lebanon Valley Coll.), and a conclusion by G. Elijah Dann (formerly, philosophy, Univ. of Toronto, Mississauga) sympathetically discussing Rorty's views on religion. VERDICT This striking presentation of Rorty's influential thoughts will be of value to those grounded in the study of philosophy, religion, and their interaction.--David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., OH

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