Review by Choice Review
In recent decades, a variety of empirical studies have supported skepticism about moral reasoning, suggesting that the human capacity for (and typical practice of) making and acting on moral judgments is infested with irrational, emotional elements. Some extreme skeptics even suggest that moral objectivity is an impossible delusion, and moral claims are merely disguises for emotional reactions. May (Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham) provides an important response to these skeptics, meeting them on their own ground by assembling and analyzing the findings of many empirical studies that suggest that the skeptics' evidence is often misinterpreted or exaggerated in significance. He argues that skeptics face a dilemma: influences that affect a wide range of moral judgments are likely to involve good reasons for moral judgments, whereas any specific case of unreasonable judgment will have limited scope and is recognized as unreasonable precisely against the normal background of mostly reason-based judgments. Of course, some skeptics concede that some moral judgments are rational, making the debate about percentages rather than absolutes. May offers good reasons for optimism about where the percentages fall and about the human capacity to overcome irrational biases in morality. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. --Scott E. Forschler, independent scholar
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
