Not long ago, Bryan Caplan announced he was doing a series of one-paragraph book reviews, in which he’d review books in one paragraph. When I was younger, before my third birthday, I think, I used to read the New Yorker a lot, and they did a similar thing which I very much liked. To that end, here are some books I recently read. (I will stop reviewing books when I’ve read all of the books.)
The Path to Power by Robert Caro. Finished re-reading two weeks ago. The book is volume one of Robert Caro’s ongoing five-part presidential biography, The Years of Lyndon Johnson, supposedly the best political biography ever written. (I’ve read other political biographies besides this, mostly about my favourite president, Jimmy Carter, but nothing I’ve read comes close.) Volume One takes the reader from when Lyndon Johnson was a long-eared, conniving, 6 ft 3 baby to when Lyndon Johnson was a long-eared, conniving, 6 ft 3 congressmen, and how (with the exception of one curious period, when Johnson put in ridiculously long hours to teach underprivileged Mexican students English and Speech & Debate), he was a capital-B Bhaddie throughout.
Brentano and Intrinsic Value by Roderick Chisholm. This is good book, and short book, and a good short book. In 105 pages, Chisholm dissects the value theory of Franz Brentano, a German philosopher of the 19th to early 20th century. Brentano thought there were three basic emotive phenomena: “love” (the pro-attitude), “hate” (the con-attitude), and “preference” (the attitude which comparatively ranks the objects of one’s love and hate). More spicily, Brentano thought these attitudes could be true or false—correct or incorrect. A state of affairs is intrinsically good if it’s correct to love and incorrect to hate; vice versa for the intrinsically bad. The best part is when Chisholm brings Brentano into conversation with G. E. Moore, who was fond of Brentano’s work. The book ends with an application of Brentano’s theory to the problem of evil.
Justice Before the Law by Michael Huemer. According to Huemer, the proper role of the justice system is to promote Justice. But (shock, horror) the American legal system promotes lots of injustice! It enforces unjust laws (immigration laws, drug laws, yada yada), costs too much, takes too much time to navigate, extorts pleas, punishes disproportionately, and does other bad things besides. The justice system should stop doing these things, pronto, and put Justice before the law, instead. The best bits are the discussions of rights and natural law theory (Chap. 2) and Huemer’s case against unfettered plea bargaining (Chap. 5). The only weird thing, and this may have been corrected since, is that the references for chapter six were accidentally duplicated, meaning the references for chapter seven are missing. I can guess who “Orwell 1961” and “Sowell 2006” are, but otherwise I have to take Huemer’s word on factual claims made in that chapter. (This, of course, I am happy to do.)
Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition by Jan Shipps. Going in, I expected Shipps’s book to be a blow-by-blow history of the Mormon religion. What it was actually was a commentary on the state of Mormon historical studies. Much of book was therefore over my head, because I haven’t read many of the histories she comments on. The bit I found most interesting was Shipps’s case for reliability of the memoirs of Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, as a testament to the boy-Joseph’s deeds and dispositions. There is also a helpful appendix, “A Chronology of Nineteenth Century Mormonism”, which lists all the key dates relating to early Mormon history. One of these days, I want to make these into flashcards and learn the events in order.
Double Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil by T. A. Cavanaugh. Finished yesterday. A good, smooth-sailing summary of the history of double effect reasoning (I assume the history is good—I don’t know nuffin’ about interpreting John de Lugo), a defence of its plausibility (at least in Cavanaugh’s preferred rendition, which he defines in some detail), and an exploration of its application to real-world issues—issues like tactical bombing, assisted suicide, and teenagers who sniff glue. The writing was clear and the arguments well-stated: I want to do a canvasing of the best work on this topic now to see if the Doctrine of Double Effect is sound or whether, as Norcross maintains, the doctrine is “the last refuge of a scoundrel”. I have no firm views on the question: do comment if you know of something I should read.
And, I remembered this because I was just packing up my library, if you want some additional background on the 60s, Amity Shlaes's "Great Society" is an excellent read. That was, after all, Johnson's main domestic policy goal.
If you like reading about LBJ, then you'd probably like H.R. McMaster's "Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam".