Doris, John M. Review of Anthony Appiah, EXPERIMENTS IN ETHICS. NDPR (October 2009).

Appiah, Anthony. Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007. The past decade has witnessed a remarkable expansion of work at the intersection of philosophical ethics and the human sciences. As evinced by the recent profusion of surveys and anthologies treating the new -- or newly revitalized -- fields going under such names as experimental philosophy, empirically informed ethics, and moral psychology, there is now a large and thriving literature, covering an extensive range of topics: responsibility, free will, moral judgment, rationality, motivation, character, innateness, evaluative diversity, altruism, well-being, intentionality, intuitions, and emotion (Andreou 2007; Doris and Stich 2005, 2006; Doris et al. forthcoming; Knobe and Nichols 2008; Nahmias et al. forthcoming; Sinnott-Armstrong 2007 a, b, c). With the publication of Anthony Appiah's shrewdly argued and beautifully written Experiments in Ethics, those wondering over what the fuss is about have an engaging entree to the issues. Appiah's goal is not so much to advance a new theory, but rather to demonstrate that the recent empirical turn demands attention. In some circles, empirically infused approaches to ethics have been regarded as irrelevant or confused, but Appiah's study makes such recalcitrance look seriously underinformed. However, Appiah does not mean to discredit conventional philosophical practice. Instead, he advocates a kind of methodological pluralism, where ethical reflection draws on both the conceptual tools long familiar in analytic philosophy and the empirical insights provided by experimentalists working within and without philosophy departments. Experiments in Ethics consists of one introductory chapter and a final methodological chapter, bookending three substantive chapters on issues where the empirical turn has been highly visible: character, intuition, and diversity. It would be unreasonable to expect from what Appiah modestly calls his "little book" a comprehensive survey of the field, or even a comprehensive treatment of the topics included, but Appiah's sensitive examination of the material he does discuss both advances our thinking on the issues and gives a sense of why the wider field is worth thinking about (1). . . . Read the whole review here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=17705.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "The New New Philosophy [on Experimental Ethics]." NEW YORK TIMES December 9, 2007.

Can you really do philosophy with clipboards and questionnaires? It seems that you can. Joshua Knobe, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is the philosopher who investigated how people responded to those two stories about the company chairman. (Full disclosure: I examined him on his dissertation.) You might have supposed that whether we judge an action to be (say) blameworthy depends on whether we think it was intentional, and the nature of intentional action is something philosophers have had plenty to say about. But the so-called Knobe effect suggests that — oddly enough — it may not be clear to us whether an action is intentional until we’ve decided whether it’s good or bad. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/magazine/09wwln-idealab-t.html?ex=1354856400&en=42f8ef6876e20ada&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss.

Singer, Peter. "Putting Practice Into Ethics [Review of Appiah's EXPERIMENTS IN ETHICS]." NEW YORK SUN January 16, 2008.

Appiah, Anthony Kwame. Experiments in Ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007. You are standing by a railroad track when you notice that a trolley, with no one aboard, is rolling down the track, heading for a group of five people. If the trolley continues on its present track, they will all be killed. The only thing you can do to prevent this tragedy is throw a switch that will divert the trolley onto a sidetrack. But there is one person on this sidetrack, and he will be killed. Should you throw the switch? In another version of this dilemma, the trolley is again rolling down the track, heading for a group of five people. This time, however, there is no switch or sidetrack. Instead, you are on a footbridge above the track. You consider jumping off the bridge, in front of the trolley, thus sacrificing yourself to save the five people in danger, but you realize that you are far too light to stop the trolley. Standing next to you, however, is a very large stranger. The only way you can stop the trolley killing five people is by pushing this large stranger in front of the trolley. He will be killed, but you will save the other five. Should you push the stranger? Philosophers have been pondering these dilemmas since the 1960s. Many — notably Judith Jarvis Thomson and Frances Kamm — have agreed that you may throw the switch, but must not push the large stranger. But why? In each case, we face a choice between bringing about the death of one person or allowing five to die. Where does the moral difference lie? The discussion has embraced a variety of moral theories, but it has not produced a truly satisfying answer. What philosophers did not do, until recently, is take an interest in empirical research about our responses to these or other dilemmas. Now, as philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah describes in his concise yet erudite and engagingly written new book, Experiments in Ethics (Harvard University Press, 288 pages, $22.95), this is changing. . . . Read the rest here: http://www.nysun.com/article/69595.