Vices, Virtues, and Consequences: Essays in Moral and Political Philosophy by Peter Phillips Simpson (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Vices, Virtues, and Consequences: Essays in Moral and Political Philosophy. By PETER PHILLIPS SIMPSON. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001. Pp. 283. $54.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8132-0993-5. The author of this volume, which is number 35 of CUA Press's Studies in Philosophy and the History ofPhilosophy, is a native of England who lectured in ethics and politics at University College Dublin before beginning his American academic career as a member of the CUA School of Philosophy faculty. He is now professor of philosophy and classics at the City University of New York. The present volume brings together fifteen of his essays on ethics and politics; nine are revisions of previously published articles, including one in this journal on "St. Thomas and the Naturalistic Fallacy" (The Thomist 51 [1987]: 51-69). Overall, the essays reveal the author's strong Catholic Christian convictions, although (with exceptions to be noted below) they are written in a formally philosophical perspective. The first seven essays, constituting "Part I: Moral Philosophy," undertake an assessment of modern ethical theories-particularly in the Anglo-American world-and argue for a recoveryofAristotelian and Thomistic moral philosophy as an answer to modern dilemmas and quandaries. Essays 1 and 2 review the history of modern ethics from its originators (Macchiavelli, Hobbes, Kant) to its more recent and contemporary development in the work of G. E. Moore, R. M. Hare, and John Rawls. Simpson finds that the overall thrust of this movement has been to confine contemporary Anglo-American moral discourse within exceedingly narrow boundaries and to give up on universal moral reason. He detects this despair of universal reason also in Alasdair Macintyre, judging that the latter's emphasis on community traditions in expounding Aristotle's virtue ethics amounts to "historicism" (31). Essays 3 and 4 are devoted to a critique of relativism and consequentialism, respectively. Essay 5 presents Simpson's interpretation of Aristotle's virtue theory, and essays 6 and 7 complete the volume's first part by expounding on Aquinas's understanding of practical reasoning. This group of essays is engaging and, in a couple of instances, problematic. In discussing relativism, Simpson offers a cogent criticism of Hobbesian and Kantian notions of moral wrong (based on fear and duty, respectively); but his own effort to discredit relativism by a reductio ad absurdum is unconvincing. 473 474 BOOK REVIEWS Simpson would have it that relativism must ultimately exclude the notion of moral wrong altogether, for "it makes no sense to say that I think something is wrong for me but I do it anyway" (58); however, even relativists do have consciences and can act contrary to their conscientious convictions, as Simpson himself will eloquently affirm much later in a different context (262). Likewise unconvincing is Simpson's attempted refutation of consequentialism, since it seems to beg the very questions at issue: would the killing of an innocent person in an exceptional case really be an unjust act, and, first of all, on what understanding of justice should we base our response to such a case (76-86)? The essays on Aristotle andAquinas are more compelling. Simpson effectively challenges the efforts of some "neo-Aristotelians" to disengage Aristotle's virtue theory from his aristocratic biases; as noted below, however, some essays in the volume's second part will apply Aristotle's teaching in problematic ways. With equal effect, Simpson explains Aquinas's teaching on the interaction of thought and desire in practical reasoning. As opposed to the novel interpretations of Aquinas offered by Germain Grisez and John Finnis, Simpson's account allows for aconnection betweentheoretical and practical reasoning without succumbing to any "naturalistic fallacy." "Part II: Political Philosophy," comprising the remaining eight essays, reflects Simpson's most specialized philosophical interest. His previous books have included The Politics ofAristotle (1997), which is an annotated translation with analysis and commentary, and A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (1998), both published by the University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill). In the present volume, most of part II spells out the author's understanding ofAristotle's teaching on the organic unity between "ethics" and "politics," applying this to a discussion of various...