The best books on a rational approach to ethics

Plato’s Republic is famous as a work of political philosophy. It describes in speech what the Platonic Socrates suggests is the best political order. However, Socrates admits that his ideal city would probably never become a reality. He also points to possible defects in his proposed best regime. More interesting, to me, is the teaching of the Republic that a good ethical life involves a person’s using reason to supervise (not eliminate) the passions. The examples of Socratic dialectic in this dialogue are illustrations of the use of human reason and the dangers of fallacious thinking. Plato’s teaching of the importance of reason continues to be relevant in our time.

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics has always been one of my favorite books. Although Aristotle suggests that proper habituation in noble conduct is important for young people and those who never mature intellectually, he emphasizes the importance of reason for those who are capable of it. He provides an excellent argument for free will, without using modern terminology. He distinguishes between moral virtues and intellectual virtues. The moral virtues include such things as moderation and courage, and these are properly guided by an ethical mean—neither excess nor deficiency—as was earlier stated by Confucius. He extols the life of reason, as distinguished from the life of passion. He teaches, contrary to much modern philosophy, that reason applies to both ends and means.

The Analects of Confucius are a treasure trove of ancient ethical wisdom. Without explicitly discussing reason, as it came to be known in the West, Confucius’s maxims were implicitly based on reason and moderation. He articulated the concept of the ethical mean (avoiding both excess and deficiency) about 150 years before Aristotle taught a similar concept. He expressed the principle of the Golden Rule hundreds of years before Jesus, though other thinkers had formulated it even earlier. Much of what Confucius said had to do with ritual and political matters unique to his time and place. However, some of his ethical sayings are as true today as they were when he first uttered them millennia ago. In reading and reflecting upon them, I was struck by their contemporary relevance.

Phillipa Foot (1920–2010) was one of the founders of the neo-Aristotelian school called “virtue ethics.” In her book Natural Goodness, Foot argues that the is-ought (fact-value) dichotomy of modern philosophy is inapplicable to biological entities, because the “is” of living beings necessarily involves the “ought” of goal-directed (teleological) behavior. This is especially true of human beings, who possess reason as a guide to moral action. Foot rejects the view of many modern thinkers that ethics is only about one’s duties to others. She reinstates the Aristotelian concept that ethics also involves such self-regarding virtues as moderation and wisdom. I agree with Foot’s basic principles, though not necessarily with all the details of her applications.

Early evolutionary biology was preoccupied with notions of Social Darwinism (the survival of the fittest), but later developments in the field have focused not only on evolving patterns of social cooperation but also on the nature of the human brain itself. The latter is the subject of neuroscientist Elkhonon Goldberg’s The New Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes in a Complex World. Goldberg observes that human cerebral evolution has resulted in the development of a complex human brain. Humans possess, by way of their frontal lobes (especially their prefrontal cortex), complex executive functions involving advanced intentionality and decision-making. Goldberg recognizes that emotional areas of the brain interact with its executive functions, but his neuroscientific investigations support my own view that human reason, rightly understood, should supervise human thought and action.