The main weakness of the book is that its impressive erudition is not sufficiently ordered, filtered and edited to make it serve the central argument. In his enthusiasm to gather and share his evidence, Grayling has neglected to turn it into a convincing case.
ReadMorality is a form of common sense: the sense we have in common of what we all owe to each other. It can only work if we refuse to make ad hoc exceptions, no matter how intellectually justified they appear to be.
ReadThere is gold in these pages but the reader has to work hard to mine it and cast it into something useful. Taylor deserves his reputation as a thinker of unparalleled breadth and depth, but in this book his vision has turned too inward and backward. It is as though he has become too transfixed by his insight that we are the products of our cultures and history and so has become trapped in his own.
ReadWhen we are faced with any limit it is tempting to look for something that overcomes it: when there is no cure, even snake oil becomes tempting. Sadly, the supplements to reason are just as useless.
ReadVideo of debate I took part in at How The Light Gets IN 2015, with Andrew Bowie, Edwina Currie and host Richard Coles.
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