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The Good, the Bad and the Moral Dilemma
G. R. Evans
Lion £8.99 (978-0-7459-5268-0)
Church Times Bookshop £8.10
THIS BOOK proved full of surprises. The first was the identity of the publisher. This is not an illustrated encyclopedia, nor a colourful children’s book, with which we tend to associate Lion, but a serious and, in its own way, weighty paperback, which raises fundamental questions about the contemporary approach to ethics.
It is about virtue and the moral life. It is about not only “internal” virtue, but virtue applied to issues such as human rights, justice, and ecology. It asks whether I can really make a difference by the way I live, and hints at a positive reply. Does divine providence or fate predetermine my moral responses? Am I free to be good — or bad?
The writer makes no assumptions about religious belief; and a human-ist or Hindu would feel at home with many of the issues raised, and even the “answers” proposed. Yet Evans, a former Professor of Medieval and Intellectual History at Cambridge, has managed to present all this within 150 pages, in an engaging, relevant, and readable way.
Her academic background gives both breadth and depth to her observations, and yet at times there is an almost playful element to her writing. She can unpack Augustine on the origin of evil, for instance, with a sure but light touch; and contemporary references — yes, Harry Potter — earth the arguments. Those who look for moral or ethical rules will search in vain. So many of today’s ethical problems, she says, can be addressed only “for the best” rather than with an “always-right” answer. Thinking through fundamental principles is more important than sticking to rules.
I suspect that if one had to label the author’s position, it would fall into the category of virtue ethics — doing good because it is the right thing to do. “I shall keep making mistakes and failing to be as ‘good’ as I meant,” she writes — echoing St Paul in Romans. “I try to be good because it is right, and not worry whether a scorecard is being kept.”
Questions, many of them unanswerable, pepper the pages: Should I take the car, or walk? How should I react to being told I have a terminal illness? Is it all right to engage in retail therapy, if it cheers me up? When does spin become lying? Are there circumstances in which some should be more equal than others?
What Evans doesn’t offer are answers — or, rather, the only answer she proposes is the search for fundamental principles. Living the good life, in other words, is not, and was never meant to be, easy.
Canon Winter is a retired cleric in the diocese of Oxford.
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