Book Reviews

Nils HOPPE. Bioequity Property and the Human Body. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009.
177 pp.
Suppose that while you are cutting your fingernails, someone passes, takes a nail fragment you have just clipped and runs away with it. You go to the police and say that you
have been the victim of theft. What would the reaction of the police be when you tell
them that a part of one of your nails has been stolen? They would probably check
the alcohol level in your blood or call the nearest psychiatric hospital to ask if they are
missing one of their patients.
While a scenario like this is hardly likely to happen in real life, similar scenarios
have become a part of our contemporary reality. Certain parts of the human body
notably organs, but also tissue have become objects that can sometimes yield considerable financial profit, and even if we leave out the purely economic aspect, everybody
knows that there is a demand for human tissue or human cells in research. Now what
if the blood that is taken from you in a routine blood test is used by a laboratory after
it has made the tests it had to make? Suppose that the laboratory discovers that your
blood has a certain healing property and suppose that the gene responsible for this
property can be isolated and used for the production of a medicine? Does the laboratory
have a right to use your blood in such a way? Should you be included in the financial
profits generated by the sale of the new medicine? All these questions point to a more
fundamental question: In what sense can you be said to be the owner of your own body
parts, your tissues, your cells, your body fluids or your genetic make-up?
Nils Hoppe (University of Hannover, Germany) deals with this question in his
latest book. One of his basic starting points is that the law has not kept pace with recent
developments in biomedicine, with the consequence that the human body has become
a priceless resource of material (132). This leads to rather paradoxical situations. The
principle of non-commercialisation of body-parts makes it legally impossible for me to
sell biological material stemming from my body, but this principle does not prevent
someone from using this biological material obtained in the context of a routine
examination procedure in whatever way he or she likes and especially to use it to make
huge profits. And the existing legislation does not permit me to claim at least a part of
these profits as legally due to me insofar as the material used stems from my body. In
other words, the law does not permit me to exploit myself, as some would say, by
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selling my biological material, but it allows other people to exploit me in a certain sense.
Hoppes primary aim is to argue for a change in the law, so that situations like that of
the famous Moore case, in which scientists used tissue belonging to a certain Mr Moore
and made huge financial profits, can be rendered impossible.
Hoppes book is subdivided into three parts and thirteen chapters. The first part
presents us with the background of the debate and introduces an analytical matrix that
will serve the author in the remainder of the book. For Hoppe, it is important to make
distinctions: taking tissue from a non-consenting adult for dishonest purposes and
by invasive means is not the same as taking tissue from a child for honest purposes and
by non-invasive means. The matrix allows us to categorize different categories of tissue
prehension and retention. Yet as the author also notes, we should not expect it to provide an algorithmic answer to the question of whether a specific act is morally permissible or not.
The second part of the book presents different legal approaches to the question of a
human beings ownership of his or her biological material. The gist of Hoppes presentation
is that the existing models may sometimes lead to unfair results see Moore case or Alder
Hey case (a hospital used the tissues of dead children without asking the parents).
Given this incapacity of existing models to generate consistently fair results, the
author thinks there is an urgent need to develop a new property model in relation to
human biological material (155). What is new, however, is not the model as such, but
its application to biological material. The model is in fact equity. Since Antiquity, equity
has been an object of discussion amongst philosophers and jurists. Put in a nutshell, we
can say that equity is usually considered as a corrective of justice. Whereas justice is
generally conceived as blind to the specificities of the case, equity takes account of those
specificities that are normatively relevant and which, if not accounted for, may lead to
an unfair result summum ius summa iniuria.
Take the Moore case, for example. Remaining within the common law model, we
cannot devise any juridical answer that would entitle Mr Moore to claim a part of the
profit realized through the use of his biological material. If he had been told in advance
that such use would be made, that huge profits could be expected, and if he had consented to the use, declining any share in the profits, we could not say that he had been
treated in an unfair way. The problem is that he was told nothing and that his biological
material was used though not excised without his consent. Yet as long as we refuse
to consider biological material as property, no claim of theft or abuse of property can
be brought before a law-court. Introducing the idea of equity allows us to reflect on the
basis of the results, and if we realize that not considering biological material as a property can lead to very unfair consequences, we have a good reason to consider it as
property. As Hoppe writes at the very end of his book: Giving full criminal and civil
property protection to the individual whose tissue is in question is an increase in rights
and protection of that individual and is as such highly desirable (163).
Bioequity is a thorough and detailed legal analysis of an important question in contemporary medicine and research. Hoppe not only presents us with abstract theory, but he

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also discusses concrete cases. The analytical matrix introduced in chapter 2 is a helpful
device for anyone wishing to find his or her way in a very complex matter. Although the
concrete application of the equity model to the question of property in biological material
at the end of the book remains somewhat sketchy, the book nevertheless clearly shows
the necessity of a new model and gives us basic clues as to where we might look for it. In
that sense, Hoppes book is worth reading for anyone interested in the legal question of
a human being owning his or her own body and its different parts, tissues, etc.
Norbert Campagna
University of Luxembourg

David E. KLEMM and William SCHWEIKER. Religion and the Human Future. An
Essay on Theological Humanism. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. 202 pp.
The tsunami of clerical sexual abuse now flooding the contemporary Roman Catholic
Church highlights the irony of religion. While religion can bring insight, care and
redemption, it can also debase, abuse and reinforce the sinister aspirations of the human
spirit. All in Gods name. Cultures and religions can creatively interact but they often
collide.
This book is not about sexual abuse, but it is about religion and its place in contemporary culture and what the others see as the contemporary religious dilemma: a
polarization between fideistic theism and a reductive secularism.
Klemm and Schweiker begin their analysis of contemporary life by observing that
in our global times there is a growing awareness of deep flaws in religious heritages and
also at the core of modern Western civilization. Modernity and its beliefs about freedom,
human equality, science and democracy are being challenged. Thoughtful people wonder
if the inherited cultural values and practices can support a global future. The authors
then outline a vision of human life that they call theological humanism, which is
grounded in the idea that neither Gods will nor human flourishing alone can provide
an adequate measure and orientation for human life. In their search for a theological
humanism, Klemm and Schweiker argue that the human future needs the contribution
of all religions, but only if they are self-reforming religions that are dedicated to the
integrity of life as the manifestation of divine life and of the human good. Frankly,
I find their analysis of the contemporary human situation more convincing than their
arguments for a better future.
Religion and the Human Future provides an excellent, well thought-out and well
documented analysis of the current dilemma facing religions and religious people: the
human dangers and inadequacies of hypertheism, with its exaggerated response to the
challenge of modernity and over humanization, with its overly unreflective veneration
for modernity. The chapters on Ideas and Challenges and on The Humanist Imagination make this book worth having, reading and marking up with personal thoughts
and reactions.

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This book takes the reader on an exciting journey. At an important crossroads in

their thematic development, the authors suggest the next part of the journey: We need
a way to articulate the claim of transcendence on human beings that reduces it neither
to undecidability nor to my community. Most importantly, we need a way to understand the positive, substantive and normative meaning of transcendence as it makes a
claim on human lives within historical existence.
Basically what they are asking is: How do I know that what appears to be divine
truly is divine? Unfortunately, I dont think the authors really get around to answering
this question in a satisfactory way. The subject perhaps for their next book.
John A. Dick
Centre for American Studies in Brussels

Timothy HARVIE. Jrgen Moltmanns Ethics of Hope. Eschatological Possibilities for

Moral Action. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. 223 pp.
Jrgen Moltmann was born in Hamburg in 1926. His self-described German upbringing
was thoroughly secular, and his grandfather was a grand master in the Freemasons.
When sixteen, Moltmann idolized Albert Einstein and wanted to study mathematics at
the university level. He took his entrance exam in 1944, but went to war instead as an
Air Force auxiliary in the German army. Ordered to the Reichswald on the front lines,
he surrendered in 1945 to the first British soldier he met. For the next three years
(1945-48) he was a prisoner of war and moved from camp to camp.
He was first confined in Belgium, which was where Moltmann claimed to have lost
all hope and confidence in German culture because of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
Moltmann claimed his remorse was so great that he often felt he would rather have died
along with many of his comrades than live to face what their nation had done.
Upon his return to Germany in 1948, Moltmann began a course of study at
Gttingen University, where he was strongly influenced by Karl Barths dialectical theology. Moltmann grew critical of Barths neglect of the historical nature of reality, and
began to study Bonhoeffer.
Moltmann often cites the influence of the English pacifist and anti-capitalist theologian Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy. The real inspiration for his first major work,
however, the Theology of Hope, was the Marxist philosopher Ernst Bloch and his Principle of Hope. The whole theme of the Theology of Hope is elaborated in counterpoint
to the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, who had worked alongside Moltmann at Wuppertal. For Moltmann, the hope of the Christian faith is hope in the resurrection of
Christ crucified. Hope and faith depend on each other to remain true and substantial;
and only with both may one find not only a consolation in suffering, but also the protest
of the divine promise against suffering. Hope strengthens faith and aids believers into
living a life of love, directing them toward a new creation of all things. It creates in a
believer a passion for the possible.

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Timothy Harvies book (based on his doctorial dissertation at the University of

Aberdeen) is a critical reflection on Moltmanns thought as applied to moral action.
Moltmann praises it highly as offering nothing less than a theological foundation for
an Ethics of Hope.
The first part of the book connects with, and critically reflects on, the Moltmannian
theme in chapters on: Hope and Promise, Hope for the kingdom of God, Hope and
the Spirit of God, and Hope in the Triune God. (At some point contemporary theologians have to tackle the whole area of Trinitarian theology, but that is beyond the scope
and purpose of this book.)
The second part of Ethics of Hope will be of particular interest to readers of Ethical
Perspectives as it examines: time and space for moral hope; human nature, dignity and
rights; and an economics of hope. Any theological account of Christian moral involvement in global economics, writes Harvie, must engage human frailty and propensities
for elevating self-interest. [] and the present methods of tariffs on international trade
from lower economic nations to higher ones is in contradistinction to a life defined by
eschatological hope where all things are Gods and therefore entrusted to everyone.
It is a ponderous book but worth the pondering. I share Moltmanns exhortation:
Take and read, it is worth it.
John A. Dick
Centre for American Studies in Brussels

Julian SAVULESCU and Nick BOSTROM (eds). Human Enhancement. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009. 423 pp.
According to the books blurb, Human Enhancement presents the latest moves in the
crucial debate about the extent to which we should use technology to try to make better
humans, containing original contributions from many of the worlds leading ethicists
and moral thinkers, representing a wide range of perspectives, advocates and sceptics,
enthusiasts and moderates. Not very surprisingly, the book does not really live up to
what its blurb promises. Not all contributions are original; some have been published
before elsewhere, and several others are mere rewrites of earlier publications. And while
most of the contributors are well known players in the enhancement debate, just a few
of them would normally be counted among the world-leading moral thinkers. Moreover,
the enhancement enthusiasts clearly outnumber the sceptics. The only major critic of
the very idea that we should use technology to make better people is Michael Sandel,
whose much debated 2004 paper The Case Against Perfection is reprinted here. Sandel argues that the use of enhancement technologies indulges and thus reinforces a
human drive to mastery, which in turn prevents us from appreciating the gifted character of human powers and achievements (78), thus destroying the humility that is
requisite of all human solidarity. The editors, however, make it quite clear that they dont
think much of Sandels argument, as they cannot resist the temptation of making fun of

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him by suggesting that Sandels concerns could be met by tagging all enhancement
products with a warning (in capital letters): MAY CAUSE CONSTIPATION, DRY
MOUTH, SKIN RASHES, AND LOSS OF OPENNESS TO THE UNBIDDEN. IF
SYMPTOMS PERSIST AFTER 48 HRS, CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN AND/OR
SPIRITUAL ADVISOR (6). And just in case that kind of below-the-belt ridicule is not
yet sufficient to convince the reader of the worthlessness of Sandels argument, Frances
Kamm, in a (likewise previously published) paper that immediately follows Sandels,
attempts a proper refutation of it. Curiously, however, Kamm misses the point of
Sandels argument almost entirely when she points out that (a) one can be in favour of
human enhancement without being motivated by a desire for mastery, and that (b), even
if that really were ones motive, it wouldnt follow that enhancement was morally impermissible. That is true on both counts, of course, but it doesnt affect Sandels argument,
which does not target the actual motivation of the individuals engaged in the development and use of enhancement technologies, but rather the attitude their actions express
and contribute to. Nor does Sandel want to demonstrate the moral impermissibility of
human enhancement, but rather that it is unwise and ultimately not in our own interest
to pursue it. These are crucial differences that Kamm chooses to ignore.
Having said this, the editors are probably right to insist that it is ultimately not very
helpful to debate the question whether human enhancement is a good or a bad thing,
and that the questions we pose must be more specific and case-based in order to derive
justifiable ethical verdicts: Precisely what capacity is being enhanced in what ways? Who
has access? Who makes the decisions? Within what cultural and socio-political context?
At what cost to competing priorities? With what externalities? (3) Again, however,
hardly any of the papers collected here address these more specific questions, as most
shy away altogether from discussing concrete enhancements, let alone in a socio-political context. Torbjrn Tnnsj wonders why enhancement seems to be, to a certain
extent at least, accepted in medicine (i.e. vaccination), but frowned upon in sports medicine, and argues that the ethos of elite sport will eventually change to accommodate
and indeed welcome attempts to push the limits of what is possible for human to
achieve even further. But it does not get much more concrete than this. The only real
exception is Christine Overall, who points out in her article that the pursuit of artificial
life-enhancement technologies is also a political issue, and that we need to think about
the ways in which oppression might be deepened or diminished by various forms of
life enhancement and the policies that govern them (328). Thus the opportunity to live
longer might mean for some a new chance to accomplish their life possibilities, which
for various reasons has so far been denied to them, while for others it might be far less
important: For those who have been disadvantaged and not able to live a full life,
technologies of life extension could have a far greater effect than for those who have
been privileged and whose life was full (336).
The rest of the papers (eighteen in total) address fairly general philosophical and
ethical questions. Norman Daniels starts the discussion off by asking in what way we
would have to change so that we could justly speak of a modification of our human

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nature. He argues that most envisaged modifications, including many genetic ones, fall
short of changing human nature, which should only be considered as changed when
something that we regard as central to human nature is modified. If, for instance, we all
lost our capacity for emotional response, then human nature would have changed
because we would be very different from what we used to be and the difference would
deeply affect our relationships and social interactions (35). The same would occur if we
acquired the ability to read minds (37). It is not clear from Daniels account, however,
which capacities should count as central, and why. Nor is it quite clear why this is
relevant at all. Should we refrain from changing human nature? If yes, why? Daniels
doesnt seem to provide a reason, except one that applies to all modifications, central
or not, namely that, given the complexity of the human organism and the multiple purposes it serves, it would be rather risky to meddle with it (38).
That not all genetic enhancements would already bring about a change of human
nature might still be worth remembering when considering a claim such as the one made
by George Annas that by losing our human nature we would also inevitably lose our
human rights, since the latter depend on the former. While Annas himself has no contribution in the book, he is challenged by Eric T. Juengst who argues that the possession
of rights has nothing to do with membership in the human species, which is, after all,
characterised not by a genetic homogeneity, but on the contrary by a considerable
genetic diversity. Moreover, our genetic constitution is not fixed, but constantly evolving, so that if anything threatens human rights, then it is not the promotion of change
but rather the attempt to prevent it (50). What matters is not the genome, but instead
the opportunities for creativity it provides, and that is what we need to maintain (and
possibly increase): The human gene pool, unlike the sea, has no top, bottom, or shores:
it cannot be preserved. The reservoir of human mutual respect, good will and tolerance
for difference, however, seems perennially in danger of running dry. That is the truly
fragile heritage that we should work to preserve in monitoring genetic research on behalf
of the future (58).
Two papers attempt to address the topic of human enhancement from an Asian
perspective, which might have been interesting if the authors had actually tried to argue
from and on behalf of the Asian perspective, which unfortunately they do not. Strangely,
neither deals much with the question of enhancement at all. Ryuichi Ida tells us basically
that Asians do dot like pre-implantation diagnosis, organ transplantation, human reproductive cloning and the like, and that they are, for apparently no good reason at all, very
determined about it, and Susumu Shimazono treats the reader to a summary of the
Japanese obstetrician Takamichi Satos views on prenatal genetic diagnosis and induced
abortion (verdict: not ethical), and assures us that many disabled people lead happy
lives (298) and should therefore not be selected against.
With such opponents, those who think that we should use technology to make
better people clearly have a field day. While Peter Singer is surprisingly cautious and
circumspect in his discussion of Robert Nozicks suggestion of a genetic supermarket,
where prospective parents are free to choose the characteristics of their offspring, he

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still warns of the dangers of such a system less diversity, a detrimental competition
for positional goods, and the widening of the gap between the gene-rich and the genepoor Dan W. Brock is less hesitant and argues that selecting children on the basis of
their genomes is just fine, i.e. not in itself morally wrong (256). John Harris wholeheartedly agrees and reiterates his well-known argument that we have not only the right, but
even a moral obligation to allow, support, and pursue human enhancement because
withholding a benefit from someone is, morally speaking, tantamount to harming them
(131). Hence not extending peoples average life when that becomes possible is the same
as killing them (147). And never mind the precautionary principle, which, Harris claims,
should apply equally well to the status quo: In the absence of reliable predictive knowledge as to how dangerous leaving things alone may prove, we have no rational basis for
a precautionary approach which prioritizes the status quo (133). The same line is taken
by C.A.J. Cody whose article on Playing God suggests that those who object to technological change and want to hang on to the status quo can equally well be accused of
playing god: The gleam of hubris is as likely to be found in the eye of the ardent traditionalist as in that of the fervent revolutionary (180).
In other respects, too, proponents and opponents of the enhancement project may
have more in common than one would expect. In a thoughtful paper designed to build
bridges between the two camps, Erik Parens argues that both endorse a moral ideal of
authenticity (181), even though they interpret it differently, depending on their
psycho-ethical framework, which is constituted by our pre-rational experiences and
understandings of our selves and of our proper relationships to the world (188). While
the opponents of human enhancement understand authenticity from within a gratitude
framework, its proponents adopt a creativity framework. Although the latter currently
dominates there is after all no money to be made in exhibiting gratitude (191)
Parens insists that both frameworks are equally worthy (181) and we would be well
advised to employ them flexibly.
This good advice, though, is sadly ignored by Arthur L. Caplan whose article
attacks the anti-meliorists for promoting a static vision of human nature and
briskly dismisses their concerns as absurdly misplaced and ill-founded. When the
Presidents Council on Bioethics in their 2003 report Beyond Therapy worries that the kind of
happiness that we might acquire through the simple expedient of taking a drug, might
actually impoverish our lives, Caplan, just as the editors did with Sandel in their introduction, tries to make the authors look silly: Still, the Council broods in Beyond Therapy,
easy pleasures and cheap thrills will likely make us weak and spineless. There is nothing
like misery to make us stronger (205). Caplan cannot imagine how a pharmacologically
induced happiness could be fraudulent or inauthentic, or at any rate why it should be
thought relevant, and feels tempted to ask who is writing this stuff is the Council
somehow psychically channelling our Puritan ancestors? (206)
Julian Savulescu and Daniel Wikler seem to psychically channel someone else
instead, namely our post-human successors. Savulescu discusses a paper by the late Bernard Williams, The Human Prejudice, in which Williams defends the bias we humans

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usually have towards humans. While Williams believed that we are quite right to accord
a higher moral status to humans than to other beings, simply because they are humans,
Savulescu declares such a view to be mistaken (228) because what matters morally is
not membership in the human species, but the possession of a certain set of properties,
the most important of which (and perhaps the only essential one) is the capacity to
display practical rationality (243). He concludes that if post-humans, or indeed any nonhuman life form, proved to be greatly superior to us in that respect, then we should value
their lives higher than ours and, if necessary, sacrifice ours for theirs (244). Wikler follows
suit by concluding his discussion of Paternalism in the Age of Cognitive Enhancement
with the claim that the cognitively-enhanced would be within their rights to deprive the
rest of us of our rights and to appoint themselves our guardians (354). We would be
able to trust those superior beings to make the right decisions for us because, as Robin
Hanson then tries to convince us, they would clearly have a stronger truth-orientation
and hence be less prone to the common human vice of self-deception (369).
In the last article of the book, and certainly one of the most ambitious, Nick
Bostrom and Anders Sandberg attempt to develop an evolutionary heuristic for human
enhancement, which is supposed to incorporate the grains of truth contained in nature
knows best attitudes (375). The authors acknowledge the complexity of the human
organism and particularly the human brain, which seems to justify common doubts that
such an intricate system can be further improved by human intervention. However, what
Bostrom and Sandberg then proceed to demonstrate is that evolution routinely falls
short of optimality (380), so that despite this complexity in many particular cases
() it is practically feasible to improve human nature (377). One reason for this is that
the environment for which evolution designed the system has changed considerably, so
that the system may no longer meet the demands the new environment imposes
(changed tradeoffs). Another reason is that what evolution values, namely an organisms fitness to survive and reproduce, is not necessarily what we value (value discordance). And finally, there may have been evolutionary restrictions: evolution had to
work with what was there, while we can choose and design the tools that best serve our
purposes. The authors conclude that whenever a particular enhancement intervention is
proposed we should ask ourselves why the system does not possess it already. If we can
answer this question in reference to one of the above explanations, then we are justified
in thinking that the proposed intervention might actually work. If not, then we should
trust the wisdom of nature and leave well alone.
Michael Hauskeller
University of Exeter

Gillian TETT. Fools Gold. London: Little-Brown, 2009. 338 pp.

Fools Gold is about the first episode in the financial crisis, and it is a real page turner.
Of course, we all know now how the episode ended and, of course, the whodunit aspect

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is rather limited as we all now know that the bankers and not the butlers did it. (This is
in fact an a priori truth that does not call for any detective work: there simply is no
financial crisis without officers of the financial industry being involved.) The suspense
of the book lies in the how-did-it-happen aspect: how is it possible that the financing
of housing for less-than-well-off American citizens caused a $3 trillion write-down of
financial assets worldwide by the end of 2009? The detective aspect is to be discerned
more in the authors gathering of her findings than in the experience of the reader. What
makes the book stand out as one of the most exciting in the avalanche of literature on
the banks and the crisis in general is its specific intellectual perspective, which is not
blurred by undue scandal seeking or moralizing. Besides being an articulate journalist
for the Financial Times in daily practice, Gillian Tett is a social anthropologist by education. She applies the combined skills of both trades to an endogenous tribe of bankers
that is occupied with financial engineering. As a journalist, Tett obviously had excellent
access to some of the biggest houses in the financial industry and she has established
trusting relationships with professionals in the field. But what makes her narrative so
compelling is not a series of savvy details or impressive name dropping, rather it is the
anthropologic perspective of an eager-to-learn observer that grants the book its excellence. The reader is introduced to a tribe, a group of people for whom finance appears
to be an abstract mathematical game, a universe apart from all social and even economic
particulars. The tribe is set on innovating the financial management of debt. Tetts tour
de force thus consists in developing this introduction into an accessible and intelligible
account of how the enthusiasm for financial innovation of a few professionals led to
the global financial earthquakes we all witnessed in 2007 and 2008.
Of all the books that deal with the role of the bankers in the crisis, Fools Gold
has most on offer for philosophers of knowledge and for scholars in business ethics.
Throughout the narrative, Tett identifies beliefs, assumptions and delusions that made
it all happen. Interestingly, it is hinted at in several places that the heuristics in the
innovative engineering and accounting were inspired and driven by the nature of the
banking regulation that was meant to prevent the insolvency of banks. All through the
narrative, Tett puts her finger on issues of corporate culture, corporate governance and
professionalism in the financial industry. Amazingly, lack of financial understanding,
so-called financial illiteracy, is as endemic in the financial industry as it is in the population at large.
Though brilliantly written and displaying lucid understanding throughout, elements of financial illiteracy have even crept into this book, where it replicates the
terminology of the banking tribe. No matter what bankers say about it, and common
parlance notwithstanding, the infamous CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations) and
the obnoxious CDS (Credit Default Swaps) are, ontologically speaking, not derivatives at all. Financial derivatives are constructs of which the price is determined by
pre-existing financial assets. There are three and only three financial derivatives and
they correspond with three familiar speech acts: options (the granting of the right to

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buy/sell a specified financial asset at a certain price), futures (the mutual promise to
buy/sell a specified financial asset at a certain price) and swaps (the mutual promise
to exchange specified financial assets over a period of time). Hence, the CDO is not
a derivative, it merely is a synthetic debt: it does not originate in the economy directly
but it is construed by putting (slices of) original debts into a new security; or, from
the opposite perspective, the (slicing) and dispersal of original debts over several
securities is the construction of CDOs. The mere repackaging of original debt does
not yield a separate instrument of which the price is to be determined in function of
a pre-existing financial asset; the CDO is made of the same stuff as its building blocks
and thus it is not a derivative at all. Neither is the CDS; the CDS is simply an insurance against a real-world event, e.g. a debtor defaulting. As the book demonstrates, it
was the delusive abuse of the former technique (repackaging bad debts into a good
debt which is equal to the medieval turning of base metal into gold) and the illusionary misuse of the latter instrument (buying insurance without having a legitimate
interest in the occurrence; selling insurance without being sufficiently solvent to insure
in the first place) that fuelled the subprime crisis. Fools Gold informs us that even in
the financial industry itself, the basic truths of finance were either misunderstood or
irresponsibly neglected. Shocking perhaps, but not surprising with hindsight. Hence,
one of the most evident actions for regulators worldwide is simply to ask that board
members and executives of banks are at least financially literate and that the latter
should also occupy themselves with the business.
Both the illiteracy and the irresponsible behaviour have to be taken on somehow
if we are to regain less turbulent waters. But, besides issuing a tentative going back to
basics, Tett does not venture into the business of proposing remedies. The narrative
nevertheless is well worth reading for those whose very business it is to remedy and to
prevent, either at the level of the system or at the level of the individual institution.
Business ethicists will find a more subtle treatment here than the mere bewailing of
greed, and philosophers of knowledge will see innovative engineering in action. For the
rest of us, it is a very accessible and most exciting visit to the banking tribe guided by
an eloquent and a well-informed anthropologist.
Today, we still witness the crisis raging all over financial markets: Dubai trembles,
Greece stumbles, the Swiss Franc soars, central banks balance sheets bust, liquidity
rises. All of these events relate to our daily future: by themselves they cause nothing but
nominal changes, but these nominal changes express the anticipation of market participants of what our futures will look like. We live in financial times, indeed. For those
who are looking for a lucid perspective on that reality, Tetts column in the Financial
Times continues the narrative. More often than not, it touches upon the philosophical
and ethical underpinnings of the financialisation of nearly anything especially your
pension and mine.
Jos Leys
HIVA, K.U.Leuven

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Marc DE VOS. After the Meltdown. The Future of Capitalism and Globalization in the
Age of the Twin Crises. London: Shoehorn, 2010. 145 pp.
Marc De Vos provides us with a timely warning against the dangers engendered by faulty
perceptions of the financial and economic crises faulty perceptions lead to mistaken
reactions we deplore only when it is too late. Before going into the specifics of his balanced and reasonable discourse, allow me to add a word of caution. De Vos warning
is timely yet the title seems premature. He seems to assume, as the title indicates, that
the financial turbulence of the past months is over. In the reviewers opinion, however,
it is not, and it is not from the comfort of hindsight that I make such a claim. With
hindsight, I would be able to refer to the PIGS mini crisis in February 2010, which
postdates the redaction of the book. As I write, Greek civil servants are on strike against
the measures necessary to compensate for excessive spending in the past. In Greece,
airway officials are also civil servants; hence, Greece cannot be reached by plane today.
In this respect, it is temporarily cut off from the rest of the world a symbolic isolation
that might precede further isolations. This massive strike is a social crisis (debtors refusing to arrange for repayment), but it will be presented in the papers as a crisis in financial markets. Markets will be accused by populist politicians and populist academics. But
markets do not do anything; markets do not act and so cannot be accused of anything.
Market participants act. Greek strikers demonstrate social dissent and even violent
refusal to curb spending in order to stop the mountain of debt growing further and
would appear to be far from eager to repay already outstanding debts. At the same time,
however, creditors in the financial markets have risk premiums soaring all over the
financial spectrum: spreads widen, stocks go down, and currencies drift. These creditors
and the other participants, it should be noted, are nothing more than our savings
accounts, pension funds and all the other financial investment vehicles we own. In view
of Greek behaviour, financial orthodoxy cannot but predict further turbulence. The title
is also premature in the sense that a possible meltdown has not yet taken its course. We
have seen a decline in the prices of financial assets, but we will not have witnessed a
meltdown in our financial architecture until bonds have become worthless, the stock
market has become illiquid and moneys have ceased to be means of payment due to
inflation and barely credible governments. We have not gone that far yet, but we might
be getting there. So, whether we will witness a real meltdown of promises and expectations still remains to be seen. Financial crises will end when we know what is going to
happen with the enormous mountains of debt piled up by governments, banks, corporations and households. Will the necessary deleveraging be peaceful and smooth or will
it provoke dissent and war? Will promises be kept or will creditors be robbed? The book
cannot answer that question yet, but the warning it contains is timely.
De Vos argues for firm governments doing governmental things in the political
arena. He argues for the organisation of genuine markets, for businesses to create shareholder value as a way to further prosperity for all involved, for communities not to allow
fear to get the better of them. Fear engendered by faulty conceptions will propel us to

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become protectionist (of what is obsolete), to play a nationalist game (against) rather
than a cooperative game (globalist). Globally coordinated governmental action is necessary to regulate and underpin genuine markets, in finance and in the real economy. The
organisation of markets is the most appropriate forum for solving problems of allocation
and to establish prosperous growth through the spread of innovations. But, as De Vos
notes, populist discourse, feeding on financial and economic illiteracy and reinforcing
cramped instincts in the population, is going in the other direction. Instead of fine tuning and perfecting the financial and economic architecture that brought prosperity over
the last decades, we risk destroying it by nourishing protectionist delusions and nationalist reflexes.
Although I tend to disagree with De Vos on several technical issues related to
finance and financial transmission (i.e. the links between society, financial markets and
the economy), I would highly recommend his book to scholars in the humanities and
philosophers in particular. De Vos identifies the macro-ethical question of our times:
now that it has become clear that we have massively deceived ourselves or at least miscalculated enormously. Indeed, the financial phenomena represent a meltdown of unwarranted expectations unwarranted expectations about American house owners but also
unwarranted expectations about the American deficit and about the pace of economic
growth. It has not yet been determined who will pick up the bill for the destruction of
capital and deflation of monetary illusions. Will we deleverage peacefully and smoothly?
How will we continue to organise for Our Common Future? Will it be fear or will it be
reason that guides us? The argument made by De Vos is for the latter and it is well
backed up by facts and academic literature.
Nevertheless, De Vos is rather pessimistic, hence the sense of urgency throughout
his warning. The cover of the book aptly visualises this by displaying a burning planet
and money disappearing into a black hole. But by identifying the factors of social risk,
the pessimist diminishes the chances his or her prediction will come true. The main
factor of risk is cognitive in the first instance and emotional in the second: a mistaken
conception about economy and finance, combined with fear or hostility towards strangers and the markets where we meet and interact with them. If De Vos pessimism should
turn out to be unwarranted, it will be because we have allowed for the company of
strangers and because the peaceful integration of communities through commerce and
finance has succeeded. Allowing for the company of strangers means coordinating overall governance through political institutions and coordinating economic efforts through
genuine markets and firms. This is not merely some abstract scheme: it entails that
Chinese or Brazilian people may own the corporation that employs you or me. It entails
that they may legitimately decide to cut some jobs if those jobs have become superfluous, without this being unduly contested or countered by recurring to violence. It also
entails that our pensions are, at least partly, invested in far-away economic projects that
bring prosperity to people we do not know and will never meet in person. Both phenomena are solely possible on the basis of a sound financial architecture that ensures
the monitoring of debt and the genuine pursuit of shareholder value. Well-regulated

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markets are part of that architecture because governments are not fit to identify sources
of shareholder value; governments even become dangerous when they acquire the power
to run firms. Thus, the peaceful company of strangers also presupposes that financial
markets stay open and that financial transactions are unimpeded by political restrictions
such as prohibitive taxes and outright state control over monetary flows (our pensions
and savings, remember). Citizens globally need socially responsible politicians who are
ready to return to fiscal orthodoxy, able to forge coalitions for the underpinning and
regulation of markets and willing to manage inevitable conflicts without undue violence
or populist promising.
The pessimism of De Vos is warranted because many facts and tendencies point
in the opposite direction. The means to counter the inherent dangers are first and foremost in correcting populist mistakes and in easing fears and hostilities. De Vos book
contributes to this, especially to the former. The latter is more the business of politicians,
but as De Vos points out repeatedly, the politicians are mostly marching into the opposite direction. Many of them are inclined to head for the darkness of deficit spending
and nationalist ownership of the economic apparatus; money is being printed unchecked
against realistic expectations about how it can keep its value. Politicians seem unhindered by clear knowledge of financial matters when they attack speculators and markets. Our lives might become shorter and much more brutish once again if we let such
a course of action go unchecked. This might be taken quite literally too: the last time
we really went out on a Keynesian march, it started with bashing the bankers and ended
up in the unprecedented bloodshed known as World War II. The macro-ethical issue
about living with strangers is thus not solely one of financial orthodoxy and economic
lucidity, it also is a social and political one.
After the Meltdown is a timely warning for global citizens. Avoidance of alarmism is
a moral duty in these matters too.
Jos Leys
HIVA, K.U.Leuven

Mark DOOLEY. Roger Scruton. The Philosopher on Dover Beach. Continuum: London,
2009. 191 pp.
Mark Dooley portrays Roger Scruton as a true philosophical genius and the quintessential public intellectual, and reading through this well-written book one is indeed left
with the impression of a consistent philosophy. Most of the important philosophical
themes are elaborated on throughout Scrutons work: phenomenology, anthropology,
aesthetics, political philosophy, and a philosophy of religion and culture. For Dooley,
the most important feature of Scrutons philosophy is the re-establishment of the importance of the Lebenswelt. The common experience of the world around us and the people
we live with has to some degree been lost in modern life, where we are so used to thinking of our world in scientific terms or of peoples motives in psycho-analytical terms. It

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is philosophys task to restore this experience. Scrutons philosophical project is similar

to Hegels, in search of a home that the modern subject has lost.
Scruton does not hesitate to express his admiration for certain literature
(T.S. Eliot), architecture (Leon Krier), music (Beethoven) or for persons such as Enoch
Powell (whose hunting jacket he inherited). Much of this affirmative admiration makes
his work vulnerable to an uncharitable reading that might consider Scrutons philosophy
to have an exclusively conservative political motivation. While there can be little doubt
that his political conviction is conservative, this conservatism is the outcome of a thorough philosophical reflection. In reality, anyone who seeks to build a home considered
a persons deepest desire should cherish conservatism, because it is only through the
recognition of the institutions that support our community that a meaningful life is possible. Note: Scrutons community is inclusive, and is not confined to the happy few. On
the contrary, even the unborn and the deceased constitute part of our community, and
it is only in recognizing their rights that we can build a truly meaningful life for ourselves. If we consider the deceased as part of our community, this means that we have
to respect our world as an inheritance from former generations, and by including the
unborn, we have to find a way to pass it on to the next generation, instead of exhausting it for our own contemporary purposes.
Mark Dooley has succeeded in introducing Scrutons thought to the public in a
comprehensive volume. Its five chapters, entitled Philosophy: The Seamstress of the
Lebenswelt; Personhood, Sex and the Sacred; Gazing Aesthetically; The Meaning of Conservatism; In
Defence of the Nation, offer us a clear view of these topics that are mutually dependent in
Scrutons philosophy. Moreover, by using extensive citation, Dooley gives the reader a
taste of Scrutons literary qualities. Dooley is an excellent guide through Scrutons
oeuvre, citing as effortlessly from all his major books as from online-interviews and
contributions to public discussions. One senses the awe-like consideration that Dooley
has for (t)his master, and perhaps this can be said to be the only flaw of his work. While
a degree of love for ones subject is necessary in order to do justice to it certainly
when it comes to interpreting Scrutons philosophical views, which have often been
ignored at British universities on account of his political reputation but too much
love can also be detrimental because it inclines the admirer to detest the enemy in
advance. Sworn enemies such as Sartre, Derrida and Foucault are often not refuted with
serious counterarguments. It is possible, of course, that presenting Scrutons philosophy
while arguing in detail about how and why it differs from that of the aforementioned
major French philosophers would have taken the author beyond the intended scope of
the book. We mostly get to see these philosophers through the eyes of Scruton, although
Dooley, who has written an introduction on Derrida, would have been well placed to
discuss this matter in more detail. In fact, one of the few passages in which we hear
Dooleys own voice is the one on deconstruction (79-84). Here we see Scrutons real
problem with postmodern philosophy: only if the Lebenswelt is an objective reality, at
least for people within our culture, can our common sense be a reliable basis for art,
culture, politics and patriotism. In a complex society like ours, different views on reality

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are sometimes competing, and this can mitigate ones cultural self-confidence. Scrutons
answer seems to be a robust denial of this postmodern condition, suggested by oikophobes and charlatans, a denial that gives him the opportunity to sojourn into the
domains of beauty without pity, nor gentle regret
In the last analysis many of Scrutons views are reasonable and worthy of consideration by a broader public. Dooleys excellent guide will as is often the case convince those already convinced, and will annoy those already ill-disposed toward Roger
Scruton in particular and conservatism in general.
Jelle Zeedijk
Centre for Ethics, K.U.Leuven

Axel GOSSERIES and Lukas H. MEYER (eds.). Intergenerational Justice. Oxford:

Oxford, 2009. 419 pp.
Questions of intergenerational justice are central to two of todays most important
public policy debates the controversy over the appropriate response to anthropogenic
climate change, and disputes over acceptable levels of long-term public debt. Most
policy analyses of these issues are dominated by technical concerns relating, for example, to the measurement of the effect of greenhouse gas emissions on global temperatures, or to whether technological progress will enable future generations to enjoy higher
living standards despite being burdened by intergenerational debt. The difficult philosophical questions of intergenerational justice, concerning the basis for and the content
of our obligations to future (and perhaps past) generations, tend to attract relatively
little attention in the public policy debates. This imbalance between considerations of
technical and philosophical issues is unfortunate, because the satisfactory resolution of
the great problems of applied intergenerational justice depends as much on the answers
to the philosophical questions as on the answers to the technical questions.
This collection of fourteen essays on the philosophical foundations of the obligations of intergenerational justice should help correct that imbalance. Most of the essays
address fundamental theoretical issues of intergenerational ethics. They do so from a
wide range of perspectives, including communitarian (Janna Thompson), libertarian
(Hillel Steiner and Peter Vallentyne, in a co-authored essay), contractarian (Stephen M.
Gardiner), reciprocity-based (Axel Gosseries), Marxian (Christopher Bertram), Rawlsian
(David Heyd and Daniel Attas, in separate essays), and sufficientarian (Lukas H. Meyer
and Dominic Roser, in a co-authored essay). Several of the essays, however, consider
how theories of intergenerational obligation play out in the context of particular public
policy issues. Topics addressed include population ethics (Gustaf Arrhenius), climate
policy (Clark Wolf), constitutionalism (Victor M. Muniz-Fratricelli), preference formation across generations (Krister Bykvist), and motivational problems with respect to the
well-being of future generations (Dieter Birnbacher).

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Several fundamental concerns reverberate across many of the essays. One of these
is the question of the proper response to what Derek Parfit has called the non-identity
problem, i.e. the problem of explaining how a person in a later generation can be said
to have been injured by the acts of an earlier generation, if the later person has a life
worth living (even if only barely worth living) and would not have come into existence
but for the acts of the earlier generation. Several essays address this problem; the indepth discussions by Rahul Kumar and by Meyer and Roser, are especially interesting.
John Rawlss just savings principle is also considered in several essays. The differences
of opinion with respect to the value of Rawlss work in the intergenerational context are
striking. Heyd considers Rawls the major pioneer in facing the theoretical and moral
need to expand the theory of justice to [] the inter-generational sphere (169). Wolf
also views Rawlss work as pathbreaking, describing it as a touchstone for discussions
of intergenerational [distributive] justice in particular (349). In sharp contrast, Kumar
claims that Rawlss work is widely thought to be of little value as a framework for
developing a better understanding of the basis and content of our obligations to future
generations (254).
Although the essays are intended primarily for a philosophical readership, for the
most part they are accessible to non-philosophers interested in climate change, intergenerational public debt, and other questions of applied intergenerational ethics. Public
policy analysis of issues with major intergenerational implications will be enriched if this
volume reaches that wider audience.
Lawrence Zelenak
Duke University

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