This book ambitiously and directly confronts and attempts to untangle the basic problem of ethical knowledge, i.e. that after millennia of philosophical inquiry and debate, the field of ethics as a subject of philosophical study seems to be more confused than ever. To accomplish her goal of finally bringing some clarity and sense to the subject of ethics, Ravven greatly expands the scope of ethical inquiry to delve into the history of moral education (and its failures) in the American educational tradition, the philosophically problematic concept of "free will" especially as promulgated by Augustine, the competing philosophical traditions exemplified by Maimonides and Spinoza that may present a more realistic and humane view of human moral agency, what modern neuropsychology now knows about how the brain works (and especially how the brain's functioning is constantly being reworked and readjusted as a result of the experiences one has) and the implications of this knowledge for moral agency, and the sociology of group behavior and its crucial implications for the question what exactly the "self" is and how far it extends out into the world. A key theme of the book is that the study of ethics has been handicapped by its traditional (at least in the Latin Christian tradition) association with the philosophical doctrine of "free will." Ravven examines the history of the philosophy of free will in great detail. What emerges is the realization that the doctrine of free will is in fact logically equivalent to the idea that the "self" is a transcendent entity, separate from the body and outside of nature (as in Descartes), and we also see that this is fundamentally a theological position, not a philosophical one! The fact that Western cultures have been dominated by this awkward theological chimera for centuries goes a long way toward explaining why we have had such a difficult time trying to understand the basic principles of why people behave ethically and why they don't. From the studies of group dynamics (including the overwhelming power of conformism) and of the neuroplasticity of the brain/mind, we see that the traditional philosophical notion of the self as a distinct entity is quite unrealistic. What we do know now from modern psychological and sociological research is that what we like to think of as one's "self" (or in general "human nature") is in fact endlessly malleable, a dynamic & fluid thing, a part of nature, always in flux. We now see the self as being distributed, with no fixed limits but subject to the laws of nature, a dynamic process of varying extents, and being inevitably and constantly reshaped, sometimes in the most subtle ways, by everything it experiences. Ravven ends on a hopeful note with an eloquent appeal for a sweeping reappraisal of our traditional approaches to education (and more broadly, our culture in general), that would start with a recognition of the real nature of the human mind as permeable, malleable and as a part of the natural world. We can imagine an approach to education and character development which would emphasize the development of the whole person as an ongoing process of discovery, i.e. the discovery of the ways in which harmony comes about between one's self and the world.
Ravven writes with great clarity and eloquence. Her arguments are very thoroughly thought out and thoroughly explained. The best audience for the book would be intelligent laymen who have an active interest in the topics presented in the book, who read carefully, and who take the time to think about what they read. It is not a passive reading experience. But for an intelligent person who seriously wants to shed a great deal of light on the confusing notion of what "human nature" is, I recommend this book highly.
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