Humanities: Philosophy

" HUMANITIES 419 last half-century (with the notable exception of L. G. Crocker) and less than generous in acknowledging his debt to Keirn and Belin. Baron Angot des Rotours's long article "LeBon Helvetius et I'affaire de !'Esprit" is mentioned in the bibliography, but not evaluated. The name of N. L. Torrey as co-author with D. H . Gordon is omitted on p. 241. Two essential studies of Diderot probably deserve recognition in the ·discussions of materialism as an ethical orientation: Aram Vartanian's article arid Robert Loy's book. However, such shortcomings are few and minor in this admirable new view of eighteenth-century society. The age des lumieres may yet become known as the age des affaires. Accounts are strangely garbled of the affaires Law, Damiens, Turgot, and Necker. Major literary figures from Voltaire to Beaumarchais were protagonists in causes celebres. Unexpected notoriety came to two obscure abbes and an academician with a penchant for cats; unsought fame was visited on the hapless victims of injustice and bigotry defended by Voltaire. Les affaires, which were on~;e everybody's business, have since become a realm of highly specialized investigation-a realm that calls for the talents of historian, philosopher and sociologist combined with the skills of a bibliographer and a literary detective. Professor Smith comes to the task well equipped. His report of the "affaire De l'esprit" is a model of organized fact and objective evaluation. Since Henri Guillemin 's Cette affaire infernale (Plon, "1942), shed a somewhat slanted light on the Rousseau-Hume quarrel, this is certainly the first significant contribution to the new genre. Let us hope that the author will bring his technique to bear on other famous cases-and not make this his last affaire. (G. N. LAIDLAW) · Practical Reasoning: The Stmcture and Foundations of Prudential and Moral Arguments and their Exempli~cation in Discourse, by David P. Gauthier. (London, Toronto, Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. ix, 210, $6.50) is based in large part on the author's doctoral thesis, accepted by the University of Oxford in 1961. It is written in the loose, discursive style so characteristic of contemporary philosophers of that school, with the result that it is difficult to formulate a coherent, systematic account of the doctrines that it sets forth. But as nearly as I can make it out, the argument in brief goes like this: By "practical reasoning" Gauthier seems to mean reasoning from premisses to a conclusion (called by Gauthier a "practical judgement") about what one ought to do. (p. 24) The occasion for such reasoning 420 LETIERS IN CANADA: 1965 is a situation in which one is confronted with a "practical problem, [that is,] a problem about what to do." (p. 1) The premisses of such reasoning specify "the situation in which we act, and our reasons for acting in such a situation." (p. 24) The problems about practical reasoning that Gauthier is concerned to deal with are: (I) "the nature of the inference from grounds [the premisses above mentioned?] to conclusion [the practical judgment]"; and (2) "the nature of the considerations on which [practical] judgements are based." (p. 24) _ From the point of view of the second problem, practical judgment may be divided into at least two main species, prudential judgments and moral judgments. Prudential judgments are those "based predominantly on considerations of the interests of the agent." Moral judgments are those ''based predominantly on moral considerations, or on considerations of moral obligation or duty." (p. 23) This division, however, does "not deny the essential unity of the genus, practical judgement." (p. 23) This unity is indicated by the fact that both types of judgment may be expressed (although not necessarily so, [p. 12]) with the help of the word "ought," and that this word, contrary to what has sometimes been argued, is used in the same sense in both prudential and moral judgments. (p. 18-23) Gauthier then goes on to analyse "prudential practical reasoning" (p. 43) and moral reasoning in turn. "The starting-point in [all?] practical reasoning must involve some objective which the agent supposes desirable." (p. 32) The simplest schema of a piece of practical reasoning, or practical...