A Better Place: Essays on Desire Utilitarianism by Alonzo Fyfe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I really respect the author's prsentation of an independent, cogent vision of his self-conceived desire-based philosophy. The slim volume packs hours of engaging reading as it dense with thought-provoking theses.
As a philosophy, the system works to explain much human and even animal behavior. I am drawn to philosophy for descriptive value: understanding thinking and motivation. Fyfe effectively handles that dimension but aggressively promotes a prescriptive dimensio to his system with arguments that don't convince me. His examples from extremity (rape, hydrochloric acid, more rape, etc.) Give a tiring reductio ad absurdum theme to his examples.
Fyfe is least convincing to me that has bridged the chasm between "is" and "ought" so that he predicate and dictate a morality through his system. Interestingly, I came to realize of this spearation from [b:If This Be Heresy|13549785|If This Be Heresy|James A. Pike|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1331962015s/13549785.jpg|19116184] by Bishop [a:James A. Pike|1077819|James A. Pike|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg], but Fyfe introduced me to the excellent arguments of [a:David Hume|45726|David Hume|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1200110976p2/45726.jpg]. So, even when we disagree, Fyfe is educating me.
Still, I don't recall the last book I read that caused me to dog-ear so many pages and write so many notes. With even my disagreements so thought-provoking, I look forward to pulling this off the shelf in years to come see how Fyfe and I have diverged...or converged.
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