Book reviews 253

Durkheim, E. (1925/1973) Moral education: a study in the theory and application of the sociology of
education (New York, Free Press).
Kohn, A. (1992) No contest: the case against competition (Boston, Houghton Mifflin).
Nicholls, J. G. (1989) The competitive ethos and democratic education (Cambridge, MA, Harvard
University Press).
Piaget, J. (1932/1965) The moral judgment of the child (New York, Free Press).

F. Clark Power, Professor, Program of Liberal Studies, University of Notre Dame,

Notre Dame IN 46556, USA. Email: power.1@nd.edu

© 2010, F. Clark Power

DOI: 10.1080/03057241002755176

Introduction to moral philosophy and moral education

Robin Barrow, 2007
London and New York, Routledge
£20.99 (pbk), 216 pp.
ISBN 978-0-415-42103-4

What does one want from an introductory book to a complex subject? For my money,
the answer is simple: I want a book I can offer without reservation to a student,
knowing that his or her time will be well spent. In this respect I must express some
reservations about Barrow’s book, though many would doubtless disagree. Many
philosophers are more sympathetic in principle to Barrow’s outlook than I am, and this
curious situation—the interweaving of the personal, the ethical and the intellectual—
is in a way what Barrow’s book is about.
The book is in many respects engaging. It is straightforwardly written and theoret-
ical without being turgid or technical. By ‘theoretical’ I mean that it offers a theory
of morality, and it does this in a spirit of being helpful to the reader, who could (given
the title) be an educational practitioner in need of help in the classroom. Such a
reader does not need a lengthy treatise on moral philosophy, and it is to the book’s
credit that it acknowledges this fact by eschewing the history of the discipline, except
in the commentaries that follow each chapter and which invite further reading.
The book is also, on occasion, inspiring. Responding to the sceptic’s question ‘why
should I be moral?’, Barrow writes:
…the answer is partly because you will usually pay the price, but it is also partly because
you will lose out on the inspiration of this idea; you will miss the beauty, the quality, the
magnificence in this aspiration of humans to live morally, just as those who turn their
backs on love and friendship miss part of the potential joy and wonder of life. (p.28)
Here Barrow eloquently exemplifies the kind of response that is demanded by ethical
scepticism. He does not shirk from evaluative terms like ‘magnificence’, despite
254 Book reviews

(arguably) laying himself open to a charge of circularity—justifying a value (morality)

by reference to particular moral values (e.g. magnificence). I think he is right to talk
this way, which makes it all the more surprising that Barrow’s aims in the book are
classically justificatory. I mean by this that his main preoccupation is with sceptical
threats to the concept of ethical truth, and his response is rationalistic, and even
quasi-scientific.
In order to substantiate these comments, I need to introduce Barrow’s aims, and
(as space allows) summarise his main arguments. On p. 2, he writes that he will argue
for a ‘coherent gathering together of all that can be said with pretty much certainty
about morality’. Some things are ‘true about morality’, or should at any rate be
‘provisionally accepted as the truth about morality’. A claim can be true, suggests
Barrow, even if we are unable to prove it.
What does Barrow believe is ‘true about morality’? He argues that there exists a
‘moral ideal or quintessence of morality’, i.e. a ‘set of principles that cannot be
endlessly negotiable or varying’ (p. 8). These principles constitute a ‘grounding’ or
‘foundation’ for morality, by reference to which particular claims may be justified.
Such justification does not (Barrow rightly insists) mean that there is always an ascer-
tainable ‘right thing to do’. ‘Many moral problems are difficult, and some indeed are
insoluble’, he writes on p. 22 (invoking the scientific metaphor of solubility that, like
the concept of provisional truth, permeates the book). A moral theory is ‘not a
survival kit’ or even ‘a guide to moral decision-making’ (p. 7). It is an articulation of
the fundamental principles that give the lie to the sceptical idea that morality is mere
opinion. It is also a (logical) ‘map of the moral terrain’ (p. 112).
The foundational principles of morality, according to Barrow, include the
principles of fairness, respect for persons as ends in themselves, freedom, truth and
well-being. They are foundational because philosophers as diverse as Plato, Kant,
Hume, Mill, Moore, Ewing and Blackburn (not to mention you, the reader)
‘would… agree that these five characteristics represent fundamental moral principles’
(p. 73). They are, in other words, defining characteristics of morality, which all philos-
ophers either accept(ed) as such explicitly, or ‘would have if pressed to consider the
issue’ (p. 76).
Take fairness. Barrow writes:
What nobody could coherently say and, as far as I know, nobody has ever tried to say, is
‘I care greatly about being moral, but I see no reason to try and be fair’ (p. 74).

This double claim is worth examining, for it takes us to the heart of Barrow’s concep-
tion of morality. The part about coherence (rationality) is too large a subject to
consider in this short review, but I shall make a few remarks about the empirical claim
that (as far as Barrow knows) no-one has ever denied that fairness is a defining
characteristic of morality.
The preoccupation with fairness, in the sense of equality, is in fact historically fairly
recent. (That Barrow is thinking of fairness as a kind of equality is not in doubt. On
p. 74, he discusses the ambiguity between fairness as ‘treating people in the same
way’ and ‘treating them with equal respect and concern’.) Both Plato and Aristotle
 Book reviews 255

were at ease with profound human inequalities, and it is characteristic of traditional

societies (the vast majority of societies historically and globally) that differences of
status and fortune are accepted as just. To anyone who believes, with Barrow, that
fairness/egalitarianism is a defining characteristic of morality, I would recommend
(for a page-turner on the subject) Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The remains of the day,
which explores a moral universe the possibility of which does not seem to appear on
Barrow’s horizon. Whatever one thinks of this universe, it exposes the limitations of
the idea that ‘no-one has ever’ tried to drive a wedge between morality and fairness.
False or questionable assumptions about what ‘people’ say or believe are abundant
in this book. Absent is the important idea, much discussed by philosophers, that
agreement in ethics may be purchased by ‘thinning down’ our concepts until they are
virtually meaningless. The book neglects serious philosophical issues, to which others
have drawn attention, about the quality of our ethical language. I do not have space
to go into this here, but would argue that moral philosophers need literature, rather
as mathematical philosophers need maths. Literature (if it is significant) prompts us
to explore our assumptions, seriously, persistently and imaginatively. But these, of
course, are statements of value.

Ruth Cigman, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy of Education, Institute of

Education, University of London, London, UK. Email: r.cigman@ioe.ac.uk

© 2010, Ruth Cigman

DOI: 10.1080/03057241003790553
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