For a Fundamental Social Ethic: A Philosophy of Social Change by Oliva Blanchette, S. J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 688 For a Fundamental Social Ethic: A Philosophy of Social Change. By Oliva Blanchette, S. J. New York: Philosophical Library, 1973. Pp. 243. $7.50. " This book has grown out of a double dialogue, one with the authors, both classical and contemporary, and with students, who have listened to me and challenged me to be relevant for our time." Its " purpose will not be to establish prinicples as such ... but rather to examine how principles actually operate in our real judgments and how they are assumed in our free activity." These two statements, from the author's Acknowledgments and Introduction respectively, describe the scope and content of this book. Fr. Blanchette is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston Coellge. As do many College and University professors, he feels the need to bridge the gap between theory and practice and perhaps even more between the classroom teaching and students' life experience. This is especially called for in the area of ethics which by its nature deals or should be dealing with human life and experience. In recent times, however, ethics and philosophy in general have been denied such a role in life and reduced to mental exercises of an analytical and linguistic nature. Fr. Blanchette's book reflects a growing awareness and reaction against this situation. For a Fundamental Social Ethic is not a textbook even if it grew from a classroom experience, and the title, especially the subtitle, may suggest more than the book actually offers. The author claims no original breakthrough in social philosophy. Rather, from an Aristotelian and Thomistic perspective which he wants to make his own he discusses a number of social realities in their historical and contemporary function. The realities he chooses to discuss are social responsibility, the common good, justice and friendship, and law and authority. These constitute the first four chapters of the book. They are geared to a concluding chapter on totalitarianism and revolution or violence which the author takes as a test case " that no social ethic can fail to confront." The underlying concern which permeates the discussion in all these areas is how to find the grounds for concrete moral judgments and convince the people that there is a possibility of a more just social order in the world. In the author's mind such a possibility is real if the understanding of the common good transcends the existing political boundaries and if envisioned as a historical and human value becomes the norm of all moral actions; if justice and friendship as experienced between two persons can also become the model of relations among peoples and nations; if instead of a purely positivistic and juridical conception, law and authority are brought back into their moral foundation; if revolutions and violence, instead of being dismissed in theory while still occurring in practice, can themselves be evaluated in the context of the common good. 684 BOOK REVIEWS More could be said about Fr. Blanchette's book and more will be said about the issues he discusses, since these are pressing both for a more .realistic appraisal and more concrete action. St. Albert's College Oakland, California JANKO ZAGAR, 0. P. Knowledge and Existence: An Introduction to Philosophical Problems. By Joseph Margolis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Pp. 301. $6.95. This book has for its central thesis that "men-human persons-are cultural emergents, physically embodied but exhibiting attributes that cannot be characterized exclusively in material terms." Although he pays tribute to the impact of Descartes (the only author mentioned by name) in evoking the puzzles of his book, Margolis conducts his arguments against the background of the mind-body debates current among contemporary English-language philosophers. His case stands against a variety of reductionist theories about the nature of persons and about the relationship between mind and body which have had prominence in these debates. He argues cogently against any theory which would simply identify mind with body or eliminate language about mental states; and he argues somewhat less convincingly for his own " compositional materialism ," which would admit of persons as totally composed of matter, yet as emerging within the material order with the development of human culture. Theories...