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What Should I Do?

Philosophers on the Good, the Bad, and the Puzzling
by Alexander George
What Should I Do?: Philosophers on the Good, the Bad, and the Puzzling. Oxford Univ. 2011. c.224p. ed. by Alexander George with Elisa Mai. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780199586127. pap. $15.95. PHIL
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George (philosophy, Amherst Coll.; editor, What Would Socrates Say?), founder of AskPhilosophers.org, and his team from that website play intellectual Dear Abbys. The advice is generally good—wars are a bad thing, but occasionally they are unavoidable; there is a case for vegetarianism, but it's not obligatory; where one stands on abortion depends on when one thinks life begins and how one weighs a new life against that of a mother; in a democracy people should pay their taxes. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, Peter Singer, and Daniel Dennett are cited. There are no surprises or knockdown arguments, and the advice is what you would get in a bar near Harvard Square or a pub in Bloomsbury.
VERDICT A handy book for readers whose dinner table talk runs to ideas of right and wrong.
Reviewed by Leslie Armour, Dominican Univ. Coll., Ottawa , Apr 01, 2011
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