Reflections on Ethics and Responsibility: Essays in Honor of Peter A. French is a collection of essays written in the analytic tradition on moral agency and responsibility that address a variety of topics in ethics found in the work of ethicist Peter A. French.  The collection consists of fourteen essays on topics from various corners of contemporary moral philosophy, largely focusing on questions of moral responsibility and moral agency.  The first thirteen essays are written by influential moral philosophers, including noteworthy contributions by Ishtiyaque Haji, John Martin Fischer, and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin.  The final essay is a contribution by French in which he discusses the conflict between one’s moral beliefs and their actions.

          Editor Zachary J. Goldberg begins the collection with a thorough and practical introduction outlining the work of French and the topics discussed in the contained essays.  French has made substantive contributions to the discipline of ethics, including the fields of metaethics, the study of moral language, normative ethics, the study of systematic principles for how one ought to live one’s life, applied ethics, the study of how we ought to address particular moral challenges such as climate change, governance, and law, and has contributed much to discussion of the nature of moral agency and responsibility.  Goldberg’s introduction efficiently explains the relationship between the included articles and French’s philosophical views.

          The chapters are arranged relatively cohesively, given the wide scope of the subject matter, with the first four chapters dealing with various theories of moral responsibility – elaborating on, or critiquing, French’s views on the matter, chapters 5 and 6 dealing, roughly, with deflationist theories of agency and responsibility, chapters 7 and 8 dealing with contemporary issues in applied ethics (climate change and sports ethics respectively).  Note, however, there is no overlap between chapters; this collection is neither a thorough or complete analysis or response to any given topic of interest in French’s writing, but a collection of isolated, but compelling, essays exploring topics that French has written about.  Regretfully, as is typical with such collections, the broad scope of this collection means that outside of scholars studying Peter French’s work, few will find the entire collection helpful.  That said, the quality of the essays in this collection are high and most ethicists will find several of these essays worth their attention.

          The essays collected here are written for an academic audience and are largely accessible to readers unfamiliar with French’s work; however, some essays are more accessible than others.  As it so happens, the first four essays in the collection are accessible to those with little background studying ethics.  The authors of these essays do a good job of introducing even casual readers to the philosophical concepts at hand.  Each of these essays discusses moral responsibility.  In the first Andrew Khoury builds on French’s theory of responsibility and identifies eight kinds of moral responsibility.  Next, Maike Albertzart challenges French’s account of corporate moral responsibility.  The third essay, by Carols Gómez-Jara, discusses the impact French’s theory of corporate responsibility has had on corporate criminal liability.  In the fourth of these essays, Virginia Held discusses French’s account of collective responsibility.

In contrast, the next two chapters are somewhat intractable to those unfamiliar with the topic at hand.  Michael McKenna’s chapter seeks to reconcile his account of moral responsibility with French’s deflationist view.  Ishtiyaque Haji attempts to reconcile a conflict in French’s writings with regards to Harry Frankfurt’s unique counter-examples to the principle of alternate possibilities.  Both essays require far more familiarity with the academic literature of the subject than any of the preceding essays, however those familiar with these works will find these essays particularly engaging and insightful.

          The next two essays are concerned with contributions French has made to applied ethics.  An essay by Tracy Isaacs argues against French’s position on how to address climate change.  Next, William J. Morgan’s essay on sports ethics is an interesting, accessible critique of French’s position.

          The remaining essays in the collection are less easy to categorize.  Deborah Tollefsen writes about French’s theory of “moral innocence” and how it must be lost for one to become a full moral agent.  French argues this loss instills moral concepts in an agent, but Tollefsen argues that the loss, instead, instills a sense of vulnerability.  Next, Zachary J. Goldberg examines French’s theory of moral evil.  An essay by Margaret Urban Walker investigates an interesting topic in applied ethics – whether there is a moral obligation to remember past moral atrocities.  Leo Zaibert’s essay discusses French’s theory of vengeance and moral justifiability.

          Fortunately, the collection of essays ends on a high note, with two accessible essays, the first by John Martin Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin investigating the desirability of immorality, and the last by French, discussing the conflict between one’s moral beliefs and actions.  Both essays feature French’s taking inspiration from fiction; the first a response to French’s theory that westerns are embracing ending (death) as illustrated by American Westerns, while the latter is a compelling discussion about the locus of morality, as illustrated by comparing the apparently akratic actions of Huckleberry Finn in which he helps his friend Jim, an escaped slave, evade his pursuers, with the equally apparently akratic actions of Thomas Jefferson who consistently wrote of slavery as an indefensible evil, yet owned and sold slaves throughout his life.

          French ends his essay with a coda regarding the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court Decision in which the court found that corporations had a right to free speech, and could thus could spend unlimited money on political campaigns.  French’s work was cited in the ruling, but French notes that the views expressed by the Supreme Court are, in fact, at odds with his views on corporate responsibility. 

In closing, I strongly recommend this collection of essays for academic libraries.  The work of French and his commenters has substantive practical implications for a variety of fields in ethics, and many of these essays are accessible to all levels of academic audiences.

© 2018 William Simkulet

William Simkulet, Ph.D., University of Wisonsin, Marshfield/Wood County