Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan Neiman
Publisher: Harcourt Trade Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $16.49
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Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 19070
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 480
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0151011974
Dewey Decimal Number: 170
EAN: 9780151011971
Publication Date: May 5, 2008
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Product Description
Susan Neiman is a moral philosopher committed to making the tools of her trade relevant to real life. In Moral Clarity, she shows how resurrecting a moral vocabulary—good and evil, heroism and nobility—can steer us clear of the dogmas of the right and the helpless pragmatism of the left. In search of a framework for forming clear opinions and taking responsible action on today’s urgent political and social questions, Neiman reaches back to the eighteenth century, retrieving a set of virtues—happiness, reason, reverence, and hope—that were held high by every Enlightenment thinker. She shows that the pursuit of moral clarity is not a matter of religious faith but is open to all who are committed to these ideals, believers and nonbelievers alike. And she draws on literature, evolutionarytheory, and other contemporary research to show why, by keeping before us the distinction between the real and the possible, these ideals continue to guide and inspire.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 It's Not Easy, But It's Worth the Effort May 2, 2008
Boston Law Prof
56 out of 59 found this review helpful
Susan Neiman's Moral Clarity asks a lot of the reader, but returns the investment many fold. The issue here is how it came to be that the political right managed to usurp the "embarrassing" Enlightenment values like hope, reverence, and reason, ones that the political left prefers to avoid for fear of what? Offending? Taking a clear stand? Sounding sappy or unsophisticated?
To my mind, the key here, as in Evil in Modern Thought, is her gift in articulating a philosophy that does not come easily: Kantian or perhaps Jewish transcendentalism, in which we acknowledge that there are moral imperatives accessible to us by our reason, which imperatives or values are very real, yet not objective in the sense that they can be proved. The left reviles the religious certainty of the Bush and the neo-conservatives - morality there is real and a matter of truth; the right reviles the left's post-modern rejection of moral imperative as having any reality at all. How do you challenge God? How do you manage the paradox of radical uncertainty about the source of moral clarity, but the sense, on the other hand, that there are some clear answers (as least from time to time)?
Ranging from Abraham's confrontation with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, to a defense of the Enlightenment thinkers, to a retelling of the lessons of Odysseus's journey home from Troy, Susan Neiman proposes a method for approaching moral clarity. There are no easy answers, and we need not necessarily agree in our conclusions (an irony about moral clarity), but, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive.
The world can be improved June 27, 2008
Eng J. Amarante Santos (Lisbon, Portugal)
28 out of 28 found this review helpful
I will try to be as clear as the title: this book has as central thesis that the world we live in can and should be improved. There is abundant evidence showing that this has happened many times but there are no guarantees that we will continue to improve. There is always the risk that the world we live in will get worse. Given these circumstances, all human beings are called to give their small, medium or large contribution for the improvement of the world.
The thesis may seem relatively trivial but there are many philosophers which adopted an extreme pessimism and do not subscribe it. We also hear very frequent references to the immutability of "human nature", and the subsequent call for resignation.
The author is an American philosopher born in Atlanta with an entry in Wikipedia and a Web site. She has other books, namely the "Evil in Modern Thought" published in 2002.
The author has a great fascination for the Enlightenment thought and is strongly influenced by Kant. The "Evil in Modern Thought" owes somehow its genesis to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, to the heated philosophical discussions caused by this event and to the difficulty of reconciling the existence of a kind God, constantly intervening in the world, with the occurrence of a disaster of the magnitude of the earthquake, in a Catholic country often called "Much Faithful Nation" by the Vatican.
The excellent reception of the book has encouraged the author to move to this new one, in which the philosophy, by enabling us to better understand the world in which we live, gives us the tools to transform it. The title of the book "Moral Clarity" is an American expression dear to the political right. The author believes that the left unduly allowed the right to own the concept of Moral Clarity and even fears that the lies and corruption of the Bush administration ultimately discredit a concept which is essential for building a more just society.
After an introduction with an extraordinary text that is accessible at the author's web site - http://www.susan-neiman.de/docs/moralclarity_content.html (and whose reading I strongly recommend) and after establishing the distinction between what is and what should be, the author visits the virtues of the Enlightenment, including Happiness, Reason, Reverence and Hope. The book ends with references to Odyssey, featuring Ulysses as the hero with the qualities of the Enlightenment, to the tools that allow us to identify the evil, to the people of today who may be considered heroes and closes encouraging the reader not to accept unjust situations.
The author has not yet found any simple way to define evil and is convinced that any simple definition will fail the task. The identification of evil is a laborious task of interpretation and discussion of nuances and details.
Inspiring and Timely May 13, 2008
Doron Ben-atar (New Haven, USA)
39 out of 41 found this review helpful
Susan Neiman is a most unusual philosopher. Whereas most academic philosophers produce inaccessible archaic meditations, she addresses the central social and ethical issues that define the human search for meaning and truth. And she does so in a jargon free and lively style that invites readers to consider her profound insights. Moral Clarity reclaims the discourse of values and ethics for the liberal left. Drawing on her expertise in Kant and the Enlightenment, Neiman demands that the liberal left reclaim the language of nobility and virtue. Moral Clarity is an inspiring work that provides the intellectual foundations for the new generation of progressives.
Highly recommended May 21, 2008
Paul (Harrisburg, PA)
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
As a person disheartened by the failure of progressive ideals to gain political traction over the last two decades, this book has been a real inspiration. Neiman sheds light on how our deep-seated assumptions about what we hope to change and what we believe we can't affect what we ultimately achieve. In making her case, she presents an array of moral exemplars--ranging from Odysseus and Abraham to Enlightenment philosophers and lesser known heroes of today--who dared to challenge the apparent inevitability of egoism, power, economic forces, and other supposedly hard realities. Neiman's goal is to reinvigorate the progressive movement by asking us to adopt the values and beliefs of those who have demanded that the world be more than it appears. As a special bonus, Neiman pursues this task with unparalleled style. Her writing--at turns poetic, wry, profound--avoids both the drudgery of academic jargon and the platitudes of pop philosophy. Superb stuff.
Everything You Felt Uncomfortable About Politics and Never Dared Say May 15, 2008
Eva Ben Porat (Jerusalem, Israel)
25 out of 26 found this review helpful
Although I have always counted myself as a member of the Left, I have for a long time felt uncomfortable with its ready-made formulas and its moral meekness. This book does nothing less than offer us a new vision for the Left. It is fiercly smart, funny, and often moving. A must-read for any thinking person.
-Eva Illouz
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