This book’s author is already well
known for being the founder of the Skeptics Society, the publisher of Skeptic
magazine and the author of Why People Believe Weird Things, How We
Believe, and Science Friction. He already has a widespread fan group
as well as a large number of detractors. This latest book will no doubt add to
both.

The author as a young man suddenly
converted to Christianity but slowly moved away from religion, finally ending
up in his current highly skeptical position. This book sets out to answer the
question: How can there be any morality without God? The author politely points
out that religion originally grew up largely to justify the power of the ruling
elite (page 33). Tactfully — at a time when fundamentalist Islam is under
attack — he reminds his readers of how thoroughly unpleasant a large part of
the Old Testament’s morality is: how it is allowable and often compulsory to
kill non-Jews (pages 37-39) and how a worryingly large majority of contemporary
Israeli children approve of the genocides carried out under Yahweh’s
instructions (page 39); how a rebellious and stubborn son ought to be stoned to
death (page 183); how a woman who is not a virgin at the time of her marriage
ought to be stoned to death (page 184); and how adulterers ought to be stoned
to death (page 184). The author says, “Thankfully we have moved beyond that
culture." (Page 185) However, he also points out that radically intolerant
views lie barely beneath the surface of many contemporary Christian groups: how
the present pope believes that it is not permissible to believe that one
religion is as good as another (page 235); how George Bush senior doubts
whether atheists should be counted as citizens (page 233); and how about 80% of
Christian activists believe that members of the American Civil Liberties Union
“should not be allowed to: make a public speech, run for public office,
demonstrate in public, or operate legally." (Pages 233-234)

If the reader is a dyed-in-the-wool
‘narrow-minded, intolerant, reactionary, bible-thumping fundamentalist … a
zealot and fanatic…’ (page 237) then s/he will have thrown the book into the
dustbin by this stage. Anyone else, however, will perhaps agree that we need
another method of establishing what is moral rather than relying on religion whose
ethics are, at best, no better that the moral views of society at the time and,
at worst, anti-pluralist, intolerant and distinctly unpleasant — one recalls
that many members of the second incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan were white
Protestants and that their extreme anti-Semitism, opposition to Catholics and
belief that Blacks formed an inferior race led to terrible violence including
lynching.

The author embarks on a two-prong
proposal. Firstly, he sets out to prove that we human beings are neither good
nor bad. We have the ability to be extremely altruistic or very selfish. Our
imaginations allow us to visualize both moral and immoral actions. Over the
period of human evolution morality has evolved as the best way for groups to
achieve first intra-group and then inter-group harmony and cooperation for the
good of all involved. Secondly, he proposes a rational and scientific method of
establishing what is ethical. He rejects the two opposite poles of absolute
ethics and completely relative ethics and, instead, proposes what he calls
provisional ethics. Provisional ethics is fuzzy in the same way that logic can
be fuzzy — most things are not black or white but rather there are degrees.
Most people would agree that to tell a lie to Nazis hunting for the Jewish girl
hidden in the loft is not only morally permissible but morally necessary. He
argues that provisional ethics is made up of the ‘Ask first’ principle, the
happiness principle, the liberty principle, and the moderation principle. He
makes an extremely good case for his view and few theists, agnostics and
atheists would disagree with him. In view of the terrible deeds supported by
religion in the last couple of decades, this is a good book for everyone
interested in coming up with a way of establishing ethical conduct.

The book needs a good proof reader.
There are typos — e.g. ‘murder’ for ‘murderer’ on page 155 — and several ends
of page whether the content of the subsequent page does not follow on from that
of the previous page — e.g. pages 152 and 153. One or two other infelicities
could also easily be straightened out. Despite those reservations, this is a
thought-provoking book and one that ought to be widely read especially as we
seem to be living in an age of increasing religious intolerance.

© 2006
Kevin M. Purday

Kevin
Purday is a consultant in international education working mainly in Europe,
Africa and the Middle East. His main focus is on helping schools to set up the
International Baccalaureate Middle Years and Diploma Programs. He has taught
both philosophy and psychology in the I.B. diploma program.

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