1. What inspired you to write this book?
Back in April 2019, at a local high school, I gave a talk about
moral philosophy. More specifically, the topic was whether there are any moral
truths, and out of curiosity, I began by asking the students that very
question. It turned out that 75 percent thought that there are no moral
truths – that morality is merely a matter of individual perspective, or
feelings, or whatever is society’s most widely accepted rules about our dos and
don’ts. Furthermore, many of the students thought it glaringly obvious that
there can’t possibly be any moral truths. Even worse, some of them were
convinced that it would be a hideous, intolerant kind of authoritarianism to
believe, as I do, in moral truths. Worst of all, some of their teachers seemed
to agree with these students.
Two things struck me. First, none of the students were able to
come up with good reasons for their scoffing at the view that there are
objective truths about right and wrong. Not that they saw any need to. When I
asked them to justify their skepticism, they reacted as if I had asked them to
justify their disbelief in vampires. Just as there are no good reasons to
believe in vampires, there are no good reasons to believe in moral truths. End
of discussion – or so they thought.
Second, these skeptical students clearly hadn’t thought out the
implications of their denial of the existence of moral truths. I asked them if
they believed that rape is morally wrong. Yes, of course, they all did. Well, I
said, suppose someone says that rape is morally good, even a highly virtuous
act. If there are no moral truths, how could this person be mistaken? Wouldn’t
you have to admit that his moral approbation of rape was just as legitimate as
your condemnation? None of the students could answer that question –
unsurprisingly, as it is far from obvious how it could be answered, if there
are no moral truths.
There are other reasons why I wrote my book, but this one
incidence is what finally made up my mind to get started. There is way too much
confusion about morality, especially, though by no means exclusively, amongst
young people. We need more clarity about these matters.
2. What exactly is it about — and who
is it written for?
My book is a highly unorthodox (see question 8 below) introduction
to what philosophers call metaethics, that is, the nature of morality. Ever
since Antiquity, philosophers – and laymen, too, for that matter – have
disagreed about how to answer the title question, and especially in this day
and age, quite a few people adhere to moral relativism, or even moral nihilism.
The book takes the reader on a guided tour through this debate’s intriguing
theoretical landscape, elucidating the four main positions – relativism,
non-cognitivism, nihilism, and rationalism – while analyzing and examining the
many arguments for and against them. I offer, and argue for, what I take to
be the solution to the problem, and I finish, in the book’s
epilogue, by responding to the perhaps cynical, but also philosophically
interesting question: Why should I (e.g. the reader) care about morality?
This is certainly a book for philosophy students at colleges and
universities around the world, but I am aiming at a wider audience. I believe
my book speaks to anyone who is (a) interested in philosophy, especially moral
philosophy and deep, troubling questions about right and wrong, and (b) willing
to read a non-fiction book slowly while reflecting on the subject matter with
an open, yet critical mind.
3. What do you hope readers will get out of
reading your book?
I hope readers of my book will feel enriched in several ways, but
for the sake of brevity, I will mention only four.
First, I hope the reader will come to share my view that moral
philosophy can be stimulating and challenging while also being
good, clean fun.
Second, the reader will hopefully gain a deeper understanding of
the nature of morality, the nature of moral disagreements, and the
possibilities for peaceful resolutions of these disagreements.
Third, I hope the reader will see the importance of giving reason
its due in moral matters. To put it differently, when considering questions
about right and wrong, hopefully the reader will henceforth be less trusting of
both their own feelings and the moral opinions of other people. As Bertrand
Russell famously put it: “Most people would sooner die rather than think; in
fact, they do so”. Don’t be one of those people.
Fourth, and this is related to the two previous points, I
sincerely hope the reader will see the necessity of at the very least
supporting, if not working, or even fighting for, morally good causes.
4. How did you decide on your book’s title and
cover design?
Philosophy begins with questions – deep questions, often about
matters of great importance. I wanted the title to announce – clearly,
succinctly, and non-misleadingly – the question my book is trying to answer.
The subtitle, too, was important to me, because I don’t want to mislead
potential readers about the genre. There should be no doubt that the book is
written as a philosophical dialogue. Thus, I had no trouble at all deciding on
both title and subtitle.
The cover design, however, was a different matter altogether. How
do you symbolize concepts like morality and truths? Although I thought long and
hard about this, I never found a satisfactory answer.
Instead, running out of time, I decided to ‘copy’ the idea I used
for one of my two Danish books (I am, after all, allowed to ‘plagiarize’
myself), though the execution was different, obviously. So, instead of having
one picture somehow symbolize the concept of a moral truth, I asked the
publisher’s in-house artist to draw four pictures, each representing a
different aspect of the mess we humans have gotten ourselves into, and which we
urgently need to find a way out of. The four pictures symbolize (1) heated
disagreements, (2) (man-made) natural disasters, (3) war/violent conflict, and
(4) poverty/inequality. I think the artist did a great job; if the idea itself
is bad, I am the one to blame.
5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have
for fellow writers – other than run!?
That is a difficult question, as I suspect different writers can
be motivated in all sorts of ways. I doubt there is any piece of advice that is
applicable to everyone, and if there is, by now it must have hardened into a
well-worn cliché.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, my advice is this: When deciding what
kind of book to write, don’t begin by considering the chances of finding a
publisher and selling many copies. Make no mistake: To write a book is often
hard work, and if your heart is not in it all the time, there is a very real
risk that you will never reach the finish line, and then the question of who
would be interested in your book is moot. No, your primary question should be
this: How badly do I want to write this book, irrespective of
its chances of being published and selling many copies? If you have a good deal
of fun writing your book, your time won’t be wasted, regardless of the outcome.
When I first sat down to write my book, back in 2019, I was far from certain
that, once finished, I would be able to find a publisher. Nevertheless, from
start to finish, I loved every minute I was working on it.
6. Were there experiences in your
personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book?
Absolutely. Quite a few of the many examples in my book are based
on personal experience, particularly experiences with having conflicting
motivations. A couple of the book’s chapters are mainly concerned with moral
motivation – for instance, this question: What kind of motivational mechanisms
are in play when we are tempted to do what we full well know we shouldn’t do,
either because it would be morally wrong or against our own self-interest? When
grappling with both a question like this and the competing theories trying to
answer it, emotional maturity can be a big help. How do we acquire this kind of
maturity? In great part by reflecting on, and learning from, past personal
experiences with temptation, agonizing decisions, wrongdoing, regret and such
like. I don’t think I could’ve written this book 25 years ago, not because I
couldn’t have had the necessary theoretical knowledge – you can always get that
from books – but simply because, being young, I would’ve lacked the many
nuanced, lived experiences that have shaped the way I think about moral
matters.
7. How would you describe your writing style?
Which writers or books is your writing similar to?
As a philosopher who is steeped in the so-called analytical
tradition, I value clarity of both thought and exposition, and I dislike
the excessive, obfuscating use of esoteric terminology you sometimes encounter
in philosophy books, even in introductions. However, I also find it important
not to ‘dumb down’ philosophy; I don’t want to take the seriousness and the
rationality out of it, and I sure as heck don’t want to insult my reader’s
intelligence.
Consequently, I try to write as clearly and non-technically as
possible, while also respecting the inherent depths and nuances of the subject.
Whenever I suspect the going may be a bit difficult for anyone not well-versed
in philosophy, I try to be liberal with concrete, often quotidian examples that
most people can easily relate to. In fact, my book is shock-full of such
(hopefully) elucidating examples. I emphasize this, as I believe it to be one
of my book’s selling-points.
I am not in the same league as people like Peter Singer, the late
Derek Parfit, and Shelly Kagan, but I have learned a lot from these guys, and
from others who write like them, and there is no doubt that my writing style is
inspired by the way their books are written.
8. How do you feel your book compares to others in your genre?
Well, the reader can certainly expect a highly unusual reading
experience, as I believe my book is different – very different – not only from
other books in the same genre, but from almost all non-fiction books, whatever
their specific subjects. It was always my intention that my book should be ‘a
different beast’. Metaethics can be a somewhat dry, highly abstract subject.
So, I thought a great deal about how I could make the main problem, the
competing positions, and the many arguments for and against the different
theories come alive and appear relevant and engaging to the reader.
I wanted to take a chance and decided to write the book as a
philosophical dialogue between four fictional characters. Great philosophers
like Plato, Berkeley, and Hume wrote dialogues, some of them brilliant, but I
know of no modern dialogue about the existence of moral
truths, as contemporary philosophers rarely, if ever, write dialogues. There
are reasons for that, of course, and I wouldn’t write a dialogue if I my
intended audience were limited to professional philosophers. However, I firmly
believe that the dialogue genre has a lot to offer when you are addressing
beginners and readers with only a limited knowledge of philosophy. Allow me to
quickly mention what I take to be two advantages of writing a philosophy text
as a dialogue.
First, a central aspect of all good philosophy is the demand for
rational justification, and a dialogue is apt to make this clear in a vivid and
concrete way: Whenever the dialogue’s characters argue their respective cases,
or exchange objections, replies, etc., the reader is reminded that any theory
worth taking seriously must be adequately supported by reasons. As
this happens throughout my dialogue, the reader is repeatedly invited to think
critically about the issues, and to make up their own minds about the
plausibility of the various theories and arguments.
Second, and relatedly, my book’s readers can think of themselves
as witnesses to a debate that, though fictional, could very well have been
real, at least as far as the philosophical positions and arguments go. I
suspect that, for quite a few readers, the human tendency to root for some
‛contestants’ over others will make things more interesting and entertaining
than would otherwise be the case.
9. What challenges did you overcome in the
writing of this book?
I faced two main challenges. First, as I have a ‘day-job’, I
couldn’t work full time on the book, and sometimes a busy work-schedule meant
that I couldn’t write for weeks, even months. These interruptions meant, of
course, that my train of thought frequently was be broken. When, after an
extended work-related pause, I found the time to resume my writing, it was not
always easy to get back into the proper philosophical mindset. Without my
passion for philosophy, I doubt I could have kept both my focus and my
motivation.
My second challenge was the language barrier. Born in Denmark, I
have always lived here. I was taught English in school, of course, and since
the English language pervades Western culture – films, music, books, the
internet, etc. – I have certainly no problems understanding English.
Still, to write a serious book about philosophy in a language that is not my
native tongue was not a matter of course. To be honest, I was not completely
confident that I could do it. Luckily, my publisher is not complaining about my
English. I hope my readers won’t, either.
10. If people can buy or read one book this week
or month, why should it be yours?
They should read my book because of the very troubling times we
live in. Moral disagreements are a special kind of disagreements, potentially
very dangerous, for all of us. They can be fundamental, and not infrequently
they concern matters of life and death. Just look at what is going on in the
Ukraine and the Middle East. Wars are being fought, and thousands of people are
being killed, at least partly because of disagreements about right and wrong.
We – that is, humanity – need to get back to moral basics. Unless we just give
up and concede – mistakenly, in my opinion – that ‘might is right’, we need to
understand the nature of morality, its fundamental importance for any kind of
civilization, morality’s foundations, and how moral disagreements can be
rationally resolved. My book sheds some much needed light on those
issues.
About The Author: Thomas Østergaard is a Danish philosopher, born
1970 in a small town called Ringe, currently residing in Odense. This book is
his third book, his first in English. The Danish titles of his first two
books, both peer reviewed, are:
Straffens filosofi – en kritisk indføring i
debatten, University Press of
Southern Denmark, 2018. Hvad er Livskvalitet? En filosofisk dialog,
Forlaget Muse, 2024. The first is a critical introduction to the philosophy of
punishment. The second, written as a philosophical dialogue, is an introduction
to four main theories of how to lead a good life. Please see:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61567870536806
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