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Explorations in Ethics
Edited by
David Kaspar
Explorations in Ethics
 David Kaspar
Editor

Explorations in Ethics
Editor
David Kaspar
Philosophy
St. John’s University
Staten Island, NY, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-48050-9    ISBN 978-3-030-48051-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48051-6

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To all the explorers in ethics
 Foreword

Explorations in Ethics is the product of several meetings of the Speculative

Ethics Forum in New York City. That conference has as its explicit remit
the fostering of new, and in some respects still developing, ideas in moral
philosophy, broadly conceived. David Kaspar, who organized the meet-
ings of the Forum, was driven by the sense that the field of ethics had
become too tame, too rote, and too snugly fitted into the predictable
confines of professional philosophy. As he saw it, moral philosophy was in
danger of growing stale. What was needed, he reasoned, was a forum
where moral philosophers could push the envelope and take a few risks of
the kind that would in other venues invite reprimand. In calling for ‘spec-
ulative’ work, however, the Forum was nonetheless devoted to the highest
standards of philosophical quality; the aim was to provide a site where
top-notch moral philosophy could be done beyond the restrictive expecta-
tions and requirements of the standard professional venues.
There is some irony in the fact that moral philosophy today should
need a ‘safe space’ for thinking outside of the professional strictures. After
all, it wasn’t all that long ago that ethics, and explicitly normative theoriz-
ing more broadly, was nearly banished from the profession. According to
the familiar account of these matters (the true story is far more compli-
cated), the positivist strand in analytic philosophy that dominated the pro-
fession in the decades following World War II had declared the traditional
enterprise of ethics bunk. On this view, much of ethics was helplessly
ensnared in presuppositions and premises that transcended a properly nat-
uralistic worldview and thus was to be dismissed as metaphysical nonsense.
What remained in the wake of this purge was a utilitarianism of the

vii
viii FOREWORD

flat-footed ‘cost-benefit’ kind, which rendered ethics a branch of social

science (particularly, economics). In either case, moral philosophy was
largely squeezed out of philosophy proper.
John Rawls is often credited with turning things around (once again,
the true story is more complicated). His monumental A Theory of Justice
would have been half its length were it not for the need to make the case
for thinking of normative theorizing in a nonutilitarian mode as bona fide
philosophy. As it stands, that work contains much that is innovative, sur-
prising, and, well, speculative. The important thing is that Rawls had cre-
ated the conditions under which the traditional ambitions of moral
philosophy could be reengaged.
But successes often produce new opportunities for failure, and it seems
to me that by the first decade of the new millennium, moral philosophy
had carved itself into a few ruts. This, of course, is not to say that the work
from this period is not excellent of its kind. Indeed, it tends to be of very
high quality. The claim rather is that the work appearing in the most pres-
tigious venues and thus getting the greatest uptake in the profession
tended to fit a mold, where a certain range of problems were to be taken
as especially pressing and a certain range of argumentative moves were to
be taken as decisive. The trouble, it seems to me, is not so much with that
set of problems or those methods of argumentation, as with the fact that
other problems, pursued by different means, were neglected or at least
pressed to the margin of the field. That this homogenization of the prob-
lems and methods of moral philosophy should have corresponded with
sweeping cultural and technological shifts, and thus with the emergence of
entirely new sites of moral concern, is curious.
In this volume, then, one finds an impressive line-up that includes well-­
established scholars alongside up-and-coming voices in moral philosophy.
The range of topics is inspiring. As bookends, we have Katja Vogt and
Peter Simpson, both of whom offer a contemporary spin on the Ancients.
Vogt’s opening chapter that reaches back to Plato’s Euthyphro, arguing
that the classic dilemma provides an argument for adopting a two-pronged
theory of value according to which some values are as the modern realists
claim, while others are best understood in anti-realist terms. In his closing
contribution, Simpson takes up, and takes seriously, the discussions in
Plato and Aristotle of the impact of music on the soul, arguing ultimately
that music played in a tempered scale, as nearly all Western music since
Bach is, is morally corrupting.
 FOREWORD ix

In between these two exciting chapters (and it should be noted that

Simpson ventures beyond exciting to provocative), there are more high-
lights than I have space to mention. Standouts are Tarasenko-Struc’s
examination of invisibility and misrecognition, von Kriegstein’s redeploy-
ment of Nozick’s experience machine thought experiment, and Heney’s
portrayal of the particularism-generalism dispute as mappable along dis-
tinct ‘reasons’ and ‘practices’ axes. In addition, one is struck by the seem-
ingly fortuitous threads that tie certain chapters together: questions about
action-guidance and the distinction(s) between moral and prudential rea-
sons; interest in moral psychology and the cultivation of a moral sense;
challenges occasioned by the tendency to theorize from the perspective of
ideal agents; and, broadly speaking, the idea that it’s time for moral phi-
losophy to more firmly return to life’s Big Questions. Suffice it to say that
every one of these chapters contains something fresh and stimulating.

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN Robert B. Talisse

 Acknowledgments

Explorations in Ethics had its origin in the Speculative Ethics Forum that
was held at the Manhattan campus of St. John’s University. The dates of
the event are December 5, 2015, November 19, 2016, and November 18,
2017. A number of people were crucial to the success of this volume. First,
I would like to thank Paul Gaffney, the previous chair of the philosophy
department at St. John’s University, and the department of philosophy, for
their making the Forum possible, and for their assistance in putting it on.
I am grateful to Larry S. Temkin for giving the keynote address at the first
Speculative Ethics Forum. His agreeing to do so sparked immediate inter-
est in the event. All of the speakers and participants of our meetings made
them intellectually stimulating occasions. I thank Phil Getz from Palgrave
Macmillan for recognizing the promise of our forum and for reaching out
to me with the idea of creating a volume out of it. A hearty thanks to Phil,
the team at Palgrave Macmillan, and specifically Amy Invernizzi for help-
ing to see this volume to completion. I would like to express my apprecia-
tion of my mother, other family members, and my friends for their support.
Last, I would like to give many thanks to Robert Talisse for serving as the
external advisor for the Speculative Ethics Forum. His recommendations
were critical to the success of the event. Also, I sincerely appreciate his
writing the Foreword to this volume.

xi
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
David Kaspar

2 The Euthyphro Problem Revisited 25

Katja Maria Vogt

3 Realism, Objectivity, and Evaluation 47

Justin Clarke-Doane

4 The Modal Conception of Ideal Rational Agents:

Objectively Ideal Not Merely Subjectively Ideal, Advisors
Not Exemplars, Agentially Concerned Not Agentially
Indifferent, Social Not Solitary, Self-and-­Other-
Regarding Not Wholly Self-Regarding 59
Michael Smith

5 To Boldly Go Where No Man, or Woman, Has Gone

Before! 81
Larry S. Temkin

6 Well-Being as Harmony117
Hasko von Kriegstein

xiii
xiv Contents

7 On Moral Architecture141

Diana Heney

8 The Central Difficulty of the Moral Life169

David Kaspar

9 Desert-Sensitivity and Moral Evaluation197

Leo Zaibert

10 Interpersonal Invisibility and the Recognition of Other

Persons219
Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc

11 Censure, Sanction, and the Moral Psychology of

Resentment and Punitiveness243
Jonathan Jacobs

12 A Natural Law Approach to Biomedical Ethics269

Melissa Moschella

13 The Corruptions of Music287

Peter L. Phillips Simpson

Index305
 Notes on Contributors

Justin Clarke-Doane is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Columbia

University. He holds a PhD from New York University. His work centers
on metaphysical and epistemological problems surrounding apparently a
priori domains, such as morality, modality, mathematics, and logic. He is
particularly interested in similarities and differences between these areas.
His aim is to understand the place of apparently a priori inquiry in our
intellectual and practical lives. The Philosopher’s Annual selected his
papers as among the ‘ten best in philosophy’ in 2012 and 2014. He has
published articles in the journals Nous, Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society (The Virtual Issue), and Ethics, and has published chapters in Oxford
Studies in Metaethics – Volume 10, Explanation in Ethics and Mathematics,
and New Perspectives on the Philosophy of Paul Benacerraf. His book
Morality and Mathematics was published in 2020.
Diana Heney is Assistant Professor and Greg S. Allen Dean’s Faculty
Fellow in Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She holds a PhD from
University of Toronto. Her chief interests are metaethics, bioethics, and
pragmatism. The core of her research program is the question of what it
means to inquire into moral life, and how such inquiry can improve
our practices. She is developing a practice-first approach that focuses
on the epistemic position and epistemic limitations of moral agents,
who are not solitary deliberators but rather members of communities
operating against a background of shared moral architecture. Heney’s
book is Toward a Pragmatist Metaethics (2016). She has published ­articles

xv
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

in Journal of Philosophy, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, and

Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology.
Jonathan Jacobs is Presidential Scholar, Chair of Philosophy, and
Director of the Institute of Criminal Justice Ethics at John Jay College,
The City University of New York. He is the editor of Criminal Justice
Ethics. He holds a PhD from University of Pennsylvania. His areas of spe-
cialization include ethics, medieval philosophy, moral psychology, and
theories of punishment. He has authored ten books, is editor of three
volumes, and has published over one hundred articles in several areas
of philosophy. Jacobs’ books include Law, Reason, and Morality in
Medieval Jewish Philosophy (2010), Dimensions of Moral Theory: An
Introduction to Metaethics and Moral Psychology (2002), and Choosing
Character: Responsibility for Virtue and Vice (2001). He has received
grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH),
the Earhart Foundation, and the Littauer Foundation; he has directed
an NEH Summer Seminar for faculty and was a Fulbright Scholar
in 2017.
David Kaspar teaches philosophy at St. John’s University, New York. He
holds a PhD from State University of New York at Buffalo. His focus is on
ethics. There are two lines of inquiry that are of particular interest to
him. First, he is working out the details of a comprehensive system of
moral intuitionism. Second, he is exploring the many ways in which
prudence supports morality in and out of moral situations. He has
published papers in journals such as Journal of the American Philosophical
Association, Philosophy, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, and
Philosophia. His assessment and synthesis of various moral intuitionist
theories is found in his 2012 book Intuitionism. In this book he offers
the first contemporary theory of nonnaturalist grounds of morality,
the centerpiece of which is covered by the theory of moral kinds. A
symposium on Intuitionism is published in Reason Papers, 2015.
Melissa Moschella is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic
University of America. She holds a PhD from Princeton University. She
was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton’s James Madison
Program in American Ideals and Institutions (2012–2013) and a Myser
Fellow at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture (2014–2015).
From 2017 to 2018 she served as Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics at
Columbia Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, in the
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii

Department of Medicine. Her main areas of interest are moral and

political philosophy, applied ethics (especially biomedical ethics), and
natural law ethics. Moschella is the author of To Whom Do Children
Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Education, and Children’s Autonomy
(2016) and of numerous articles in venues including Bioethics, Journal
of Medicine and Philosophy, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly,
Journal of Medical Ethics, Christian Bioethics, Theoretical Medicine and
Bioethics, and American Journal of Jurisprudence.
Peter L. Phillips Simpson is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at the
Graduate Center of The City University of New York. He holds a PhD
from Victoria University of Manchester. He has published numerous arti-
cles on a wide variety of topics: ancient philosophy, philology, epistemol-
ogy, medieval philosophy, moral and political philosophy, and philosophy
of religion. Simpson is responsible for several translations of Medieval
Latin works, such as those of Suarez and Scotus, and of Ancient Greek
works. Among his Ancient Greek translations with commentaries are
Aristotle’s Politics (1997 and 1998), The Eudemian Ethics of Aristotle
(2017), and The Great Ethics of Aristotle (2017). Two of his original philo-
sophical works are Goodness and Nature: A Defense of Ethical Naturalism
(1987) and, more recently, Political Illiberalism: A Defense of Freedom
(2018). Full details on his website: aristotelophile.com
Michael Smith is the McCosh Professor of Philosophy at Princeton
University and has recently completed his term as the chair of the
Philosophy Department. He holds a DPhil from Oxford University. Smith
was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013.
In 2016 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award for the Faculty
of Arts at Monash University. Smith presented the John Locke
Lectures at Oxford University in 2017. These lectures will appear
under the title A Standard of Judgement. He has published dozens of
articles, volume chapters, and encyclopedia entries. He has edited five
volumes of work. His first book on metaethics is The Moral Problem
(1994), which was a center of metaethical discussion after its publica-
tion and continues to be widely cited. His Ethics and the A Priori:
Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-ethics was published in 2004.
Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc is visiting assistant professor at Miami
University, Ohio. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Harvard University.
In his dissertation, ‘The Authority of Morality and the Recognition of
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Persons’, he argues that the authority of morality is vindicated by a theory

of recognition and a theory of love. His work is concerned with three
morally important interpersonal relations: wronging, love, and mutual
recognition. He is especially interested in understanding what it is to
recognize someone as a person and what that state of mind must con-
sist of if it is to play a significant role in moral complaint and social
critique, particularly in protests against objectification and
dehumanization.
Larry S. Temkin is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers
University. He holds a PhD from Princeton University. He is the author of
two highly influential works, Rethinking the Good: Moral Ideals and the
Nature of Practical Reasoning (2012) and Inequality (1993). Jeff
McMahan has claimed that Rethinking the Good is ‘a genuinely awe-­
inspiring achievement’. G.A. Cohen has written that Inequality is ‘without
question, unsurpassed by any other work on equality… [and] one of the
[twentieth century’s] most important six or seven contributions to ana-
lytical political philosophy’. Temkin has received fellowships from the
Danforth Foundation, the National Humanities Center, Harvard’s Safra
Center for Ethics, All Souls College Oxford, the National Institutes of
Health, the Australian National University, Corpus Christi College
Oxford, and Princeton, where he was the Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting
Professor for Distinguished Teaching. He has also received eight major
teaching awards.
Katja Maria Vogt is Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University,
where she received the Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award. She spe-
cializes in ancient philosophy, ethics, and normative epistemology. Vogt is
interested in questions that figure in both ancient and contemporary dis-
cussions: What are values? What kind of values are knowledge and truth?
What does it mean to want one’s life to go well? She is the author of
numerous articles, and some of these books include Desiring the Good:
Ancient Proposals and Contemporary Theory (2017), Belief and Truth: A
Skeptic Reading of Plato (2012), Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City:
Political Philosophy in the Early Stoa (2008), and Skepsis und Lebenspraxis:
Das pyrrhonische Leben ohne Meinungen (Alber, 1998). She is the editor of
Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius: Pyrrho (SAPERE Vol.
XXVII, 2015) and co-editor of Epistemology After Sextus
Empiricus (2020).
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix

Hasko von Kriegstein is assistant professor in the Department of Law &

Business in the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University,
Canada. His main research interests lie in business ethics and normative
ethical theory. His work in business ethics explores whether there is a deep
tension between business and ethics. He thinks that market institu-
tions can only be defended to the extent that they are conducive to
public welfare and that they cannot be so without substantial ethical
restraint on the part of market participants. His work in ethical the-
ory is mainly concerned with working out the correct theory of
human well-being. His work has appeared in venues such as the
Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Utilitas, Business
Ethics Quarterly, Business and Society Review, and the Journal of Business
Ethics Education.
Leo Zaibert is Professor and department chair of Philosophy at Union
College. His research interests are in the philosophy of law, ethics, and
political philosophy. Above all, he is interested in our responses to wrong-
doing; and among these possible responses he has focused upon
punishment and forgiveness. Zaibert has published numerous articles
and book chapters. His books include Five Ways Patricia Can Kill Her
Husband: A Theory of Intentionality and Blame (2005), Punishment and
Retribution (2017), and, most recently, Rethinking Punishment (2018).
He has also translated George P. Fletcher’s Loyalty: A Study on the
Morality of Relationships into Spanish (Tirant Lo Blanch, 2001).
Zaibert has previously held posts at the Simon Bolivar University (in
Venezuela), the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, Amherst College,
and he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for
the Humanities, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the
H.L.A. Hart Fellowship from Oxford University.
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

David Kaspar

The history of ethics is a history of speculations. Whatever great ethical

theory we examine, we’ll see that this is so. The highest good in life is an
activity of the soul in accord with virtue. The foundation of morality is
that one ought to act only on that maxim that one can at the same time
will as a universal law. In a given situation, that action is morally right
which produces the greatest pleasure among the agent’s options. These
are the central claims of Aristotle, Kant, and the classical utilitarians,
respectively. Each one in its origination is properly described as a piece of
speculation, as a conjecture, as a guess. Perhaps one or more of them is a
genuine insight into normative reality, or some aspect thereof. All of these
ethical hypotheses remain quite controversial within ethics when we con-
sider if they are true, when we consider if we can, or do, know them.
Theories are criticized on many grounds in ethics today. One kind of
criticism of an ethics claim is that it is ‘speculative’. This term has a special
meaning within the contemporary field of ethics and often means some-
thing other than what it ordinarily means. To the layperson all theoretical
claims in ethics are speculative. Most people outside ethics don’t believe
that ethics is an objective, cognitive discipline in which matters of dispute
might be settled or in which we can make progress in any objective sense.

D. Kaspar (*)
St. John’s University, Staten Island, NY, USA

© The Author(s) 2020 1

D. Kaspar (ed.), Explorations in Ethics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48051-6_1
2 D. KASPAR

What often invites the label ‘speculative’ today is that a theoretical claim is
not feasible under the current collective understanding of ethics, or that a
claim cannot be justified by some evidential, explanatory, or justificatory
route that is currently in favor, or that a claim posits entities that have been
thought to be justifiably discarded by previous researchers in ethics.
Explorations in Ethics features chapters that originated in a call for talks
for the Speculative Ethics Forum I held in New York City. To one extent
or another, they may be considered speculative in the strict sense of the
term. Problems in ethics are addressed by providing hypotheses to deal
with them. Neglected matters are brought into light by speculation.
Connections that might hold between different domains in ethics are
brought together by speculation. Hitherto unthought of implications of
ethical concepts and propositions are brought out by speculation. And
speculations are provided to explain why this or that theory has gone
wrong. Throughout this volume are numerous familiar matters in ethics.
The overall bent of the chapters is to tackle such matters by speculation. If
the volume may be said to have an overall import, it is to expand our
thinking in ethics beyond what we think today.

1   The Aim of Ethics

Part of what prompted me to seek ethicists to engage in speculative work
is a set of concerns about the field of ethics, considering it from a big pic-
ture perspective. This introduction could have been titled ‘The Case for
Speculative Ethics’. I say the case for speculative ethics, rather than a case,
because I haven’t seen expression of similar concerns elsewhere. That’s
why I think it might be useful here to share some of them. The field of
ethics today is rich, varied, and covering a lot of normative territory. While
some potentially significant normative areas remain unaddressed, certain
other current tendencies promise to expand ethics to more comprehen-
sively cover normative space.
There is no ‘normal ethics’ today as there is a normal science. That is,
there is no single dominant research program or paradigm that ethicists
are applying to new areas, refining and improving it in the process.
Nonetheless, we have a sense that there have been definite improvements
in several different ethical theories. Although different theories are mov-
ing in different directions, we have a sense of on what points each is strong
and on what points each is weak. At this point in time, I think that, for
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

several reasons, it is important to step back, take stock of what we are

doing in ethics, in order to move ethics forward constructively. Being that
ethicists are currently engaged in numerous lines of inquiry, it would be
helpful to pause to reflect, to what end? What do we wish to find by ethical
inquiry? What is that to which all our efforts are ultimately directed? In
short, I am asking what is the aim of ethics.
The ultimate aim of ethics is to provide a comprehensive and correct
ethical theory. Such a theory would feature a normative system to inform
individual agents of what they ought to do that covers large areas of life.
To understand what a comprehensive and correct ethical theory would be
like, we must engage in some idealization. If one new to ethics were to
take the time to look into a random sample of contemporary ethics articles
and books, and attempt to determine from that what the point of it all is,
one would be at a loss. Ethics is a discipline that is notorious for the mul-
tiple ways in which disagreement persists. Not only is there no consensus
on which view is correct, there is little agreement on what the correct
methods of ethics are, what the purpose of ethics is, or what the definition
of ethics is. It would be a source of great embarrassment for ethics if the
only conclusion we could draw from these data is that ethics has no point
and that it is, at best, a collection of personal intellectual activities.
Idealization is necessary in speaking of the aim of ethics because of the
great variety of ethics aims that currently prevail. What I think are neces-
sary requirements of a comprehensive correct ethical theory include four.
An ethical theory should feature (1) propositions with very high epistemic
credibility, if not the highest, for the normative domain, (2) an explana-
tory apparatus for the entire normative domain, (3) action-guiding infor-
mation for a wide range of situations we agents face, and (4) systematic
relations between the items meeting these different requirements.
The power of modern ethics is that it promised to meet all four of these
requirements in a simple way: through a single supreme principle of moral-
ity. Call this ‘the modern model’ of ethics. One first embarking on a quest
of moral inquiry would find certain moral propositions convincing enough
to be the initial candidates for requirement (1). We think of such items as
‘one ought not to lie’, ‘one ought not to steal’, and so on. These are often
referred to as rules of common-sense morality. The modern era in ethics is
distinctive in that at its center it placed a single supreme principle that is
supposed to have the highest epistemic credibility of all normative propo-
sitions, and that it could be used to prove the rules of common-sense
4 D. KASPAR

morality. If any such principle could do that, it would meet requirements

(1) and (2). The principle of utility, it was held, is better known than any
common-sense moral rule, and it would explain why and when we should
follow such moral rules. It was also believed by modern ethicists that
supreme principles have the central practical function of providing action-­
guidance to agents in real-life moral situations, thus satisfying requirement
(3). Lastly, requirement (4) would clearly be met by the supreme princi-
ple. No ethical system could be more simply and strikingly systematic than
one which has a single principle from which all moral truths can be derived.
The modern model of ethics has experienced several setbacks. There
are doubts that any supreme principle has very high epistemic credibility
in the normative domain, doubts that any supreme principle implies all
and only moral truths, doubts about the action-guiding capabilities of
supreme principles, and doubts about systematicity in ethics in general.
Nevertheless, I think that the four requirements for a complete and cor-
rect ethical theory retain their value. As various classical normative theo-
ries have undergone adjustment, there have been sensible proposals for
retaining, in one way or another, connection to the four requirements. For
example, as various action-guiding problems were raised for utilitarianism,
utilitarians responded by claiming that while the principle of utility pro-
vides a criterion of rightness, it should not be understood as a decision
procedure instrument.1 In this way, utilitarianism could satisfy require-
ment (2) as providing an explanation for what makes acts right and might
satisfy requirement (3) by allowing some other normative system to do the
work of providing action-guidance for agents. In this way, it is possible
that requirement (4) might be satisfied, albeit not in the simple way that
classical utilitarians envisioned.

2   The Current State of Ethics

Although there is not a single, dominant school of thought in contempo-
rary ethics, there is a distinctive way we do ethics. The dominant approach
to ethics is analytic and historically informed. By analytic I mean that it
draws from the various major schools of thought introduced and devel-
oped in the English-speaking world during the twentieth century, with

1
R. Eugene Bales proposed this solution (1971, 257). Most consequentialists accepted it
(Pettit 1993, xvi).
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

important contributions from various German-speaking thinkers.2 Most

academic ethics today follows lines developed in the analytic approach.
Graduate students are educated along the lines of this school. And ways of
thinking, writing, criticizing, and publishing in journals have emerged out
of all this. Some of the essential features of analytic philosophy are clarity
of expression, thoroughness, and carefulness. The process of reviewing
articles for publication is quite rigorous. This puts a certain stamp on the
results, and impacts how people write, and what they think is important.
One obvious way that philosophy has gained from this approach is that
different positions and theories are extremely well understood. Even if one
doesn’t agree with a theory, assessing the strengths and weakness of it is
considered quite important. This goes for contemporary as well as histori-
cal theories. That is why analytic philosophy has produced an impressive
mass of first-rate scholarship on the work of historic philosophical figures.
What sets the parameters of contemporary ethics can be traced to previ-
ous work in analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy has been extremely
successful in eliminating claims and approaches that were highly specula-
tive and difficult to justify. What is central to analytic philosophy is its
focus on logical and linguistic analyses of claims. With the tools of analytic
philosophy, we can subject claims to severe tests. A theory that offers a
supreme principle of morality provides material that we can examine to see
if it produces any counterexamples. We have the tools to see if a purported
supreme principle of morality is really equipped to, by itself, imply all and
only rules of morality. An important starting point of moral inquiry is our
intuitions. What we call intuitions are much like Bertrand Russell’s start-
ing point of ‘undeniable data’: ‘it is not the sort of thing that anybody is
going to deny’ (Russell 1956, 179). What comes to mind in ethics are the
common-sense moral rules previously mentioned. One of the signal ways
in which we theorize in ethics is by taking what is called a piecemeal
approach to theorizing. That means that we avoid postulating a compre-
hensive theory at the outset. Instead, we focus on definite defensible
claims that we can make. Once such a claim is secured, we can move on to
another piece of the theory and then to another.
Contemporary ethics is historically informed. When analytic philoso-
phy was in its founding phase, little of what we would recognize as ethics
was going on. As Stephen Schwartz states, ‘After G. E. Moore’s Principia

2
What exactly is analytic philosophy is a source of dispute. For part of my take on the mat-
ter, see Kaspar (2016). For a thorough examination of the topic, see Glock (2008).
6 D. KASPAR

Ethica of 1903, ethics was out of the mainstream of analytic philosophy

until the 1960s. None of the major figures of analytic philosophy before
1950 (with the exception of early Moore) did much work on ethics,
because they thought that it was outside the province of philosophy’
(Schwartz 2012, xii). Of a time period after that, Derek Parfit tells us,
‘When I was young, most philosophers believed that there could not be
any normative truths’ (Parfit 2011, xlv). The scene has changed quite a bit
to bring us to today. Most ethicists think there are some normative truths.
What has largely made the revival of substantive ethics possible is the work
of past ethicists. As one ethicist recently put it, ‘the giants of twentieth-
century moral philosophy were Aristotle (384–322 BC), Hume
(1711–1776), and Kant (1724–1804)’ (Stout 2010, 851).3 They still
remain so in this century.
We have learned what does and doesn’t work in classical ethical theo-
ries. Often new variants of old theories have achieved greater plausibility
by paring down the claims of the theory’s originator. New Kantianism is
certainly a living theory, with several prominent adherents. All defend the
Categorical Imperative in some formulation of it. However, I ask, how
many of the following Kant claims are held, let alone defended, by New
Kantians? The Categorical Imperative is something we know. The
Categorical Imperative is a piece of synthetic a priori knowledge. The
Categorical Imperative is an algorithm that can accurately inform us of our
duty in every single case.4 The Categorical Imperative is a single principle
that can be captured equally well in the following three formulas: ‘Act
only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it
should be a universal law’; ‘Act so as to always treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means,
but always at the same time as an end’; and ‘Act in accord with the maxims
of a member who makes universal laws for a merely possible kingdom of
ends’. Our awareness of this principle issues from the a priori transcenden-
tal structure of the mind.
The approach ethicists often take today in refining and improving old
theories can be described as eliminating elements of the theory to
strengthen it. Eliminate what is speculative and retain what is believed

3
The inclusion of Hume makes sense if we consider that he influenced both utilitarians and
moral skeptics.
4
Kant identifies this as a feature of the Categorical Imperative in Critique of Practical
Reason (1993, 8).
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

secure. Such elimination certainly does strengthen the theory in that it

gives critics less of a target to attack. In comparison with Kant’s theory, a
given New Kantian moral theory would certainly be considered less specu-
lative than Kant’s. And there is no doubt that partly accounts for the cur-
rent success of New Kantianism.

3   Safe and Unsafe Claims

Propositions that are such that no one (or few) in ethics is likely to deny
them are at the center of ethical inquiry. Propositions that are suspect in
content, in that they are considered speculative, in that they seem not to
square with a naturalistic worldview, are outside that center. All else being
equal, a proposition that we have good reason to believe is more likely to
be true than a proposition which we don’t have good reason to believe.
Propositions that no one (or few) working in ethics is likely to deny can be
called ‘safe’. A safe claim is distinctive in this way: most active researchers
in ethics would be inclined to think such a claim is theoretically preferable
to its unsafe counterparts, even if they reject the theory being offered.
Here is an illustration of what I mean. Claiming that ‘I have a moral rea-
son to keep my promise to Jones’ is safe, whereas ‘I have a prima facie duty
to keep my promise to Jones’ is unsafe. That is why a growing number of
ethicists are treating Ross’s moral theory as a theory of moral reasons, not
as a theory of prima facie duties, or they are interpreting prima facie duties
as moral reasons (Stratton-Lake 2000, 89). The prima facie duty option
would be regarded as unsafe because it has the following shortcomings.
One would have to untangle and explain the several features that are
involved in Ross’s notion of prima facie duty, which Ross describes as a
kind of property (Ross 1930, 19), as well as defend certain other meta-
physical and epistemological claims that Ross himself did not explicitly
explain. So once again, the safer route makes fewer claims, which makes it
more plausible to more theorists.
However, it is evident that theories have other requirements than pro-
viding and justifying safe propositions. Theories have as one of their aims
to explain normative phenomena. So in ethics today most would agree to
the following ranking of theoretical priorities, where the safety of a theory
and its explanatory power are the two theoretical considerations, bracket-
ing all others:
8 D. KASPAR

Mainstream ethics

1. Safe Explanatory
2. Safe Nonexplanatory
3. Unsafe Explanatory
4. Unsafe Nonexplanatory

Everyone would wish to have all and only safe propositions in their
theory, and have them be explanatory of the entire normative domain.
Contemporary ethics is largely committed to preferring safe ethical propo-
sitions to unsafe propositions, even if the theory as a whole is not explana-
tory. Theories that are explanatory but not safe are considered wanting or
simply mistaken. But the worst combination would be where a theory
offers unsafe propositions that are not explanatory of the norma-
tive domain.
An approach to ethics that is speculative would rank theories differ-
ently. Obviously, if we could provide only safe propositions which formed
a system that is explanatory of the entire normative domain, that would be
ideal. Being that we are currently far short of that state of affairs as a disci-
pline, the clear theoretical priority would be placed on providing proposi-
tions that are explanatory, even though they are not currently safe. So in
contrast to mainstream ethics, the speculative ethicist would favor the fol-
lowing ranking of priorities for theories.

Speculative ethics

1. Safe Explanatory
2. Unsafe Explanatory
3. Safe Nonexplanatory
4. Unsafe Nonexplanatory

What can justify this significantly different outlook? Quite simply, the
fact that we do not have enough knowledge in our discipline to say what
theoretical propositions are true. We have not even come to agree which
normative propositions have the highest epistemic credibility. What we are
currently doing, in effect, is barring the way of inquiry regarding theories
that are unsafe but that might have greater explanatory promise than their
safe counterparts. This results in a risk-averse approach to theorizing. To
my mind, it is much too early in the game for us to claim which theoretical
 1 INTRODUCTION 9

propositions are safe. The real risk in conducting all theorizing with safety
being paramount is that we impede our progress in getting at truth. We
choose safety over progress.

4   Pieces of Theories

Piecemeal theorizing has a number of consequences for ethics—some
good, some bad. One good result has been that we have divided claims in
ethics, as well as areas of ethics, in fruitful ways. Areas of ethics include
metaethics, the study of the nature of morality; normative ethics, the study
of the content of morality; and applied ethics, the application of normative
ethics claims to areas of moral contention in today’s world. Claims in eth-
ics can be moral, prudential, or virtue-related. One problematic result of a
discipline-wide focus on piecemeal theorizing is that only pieces of theo-
ries are produced. This is not to say that were we instead focused on
wholesale theorizing over the last several decades that ethics would be
better off today. Our predecessors made too few distinctions in normative
space, and continuing in their way would hobble our ethics explanations
when we get down to details. Today’s Kantianism, utilitarianism, and intu-
itionism indicate that the general trend is to have our theories cover less.
Although safer theories garner more agreement about their promise, even
from rival theorists, the resulting explanatory gaps in theories are larger
and more numerous.
Thinking of moving ethics theories toward completeness is daunting.
Many ethicists today recognize that we are far from working with compre-
hensive theories. At the end of his superlative book, Normative Ethics,
Shelly Kagan states, ‘Philosophical theories are often something like works
in progress’ (1998, 301). In reference to various theories and positions
that he has examined, he states, ‘the theories as we have been considering
them are so incomplete, that final judgments concerning their merits are
probably premature’ (ibid.). One reason to expand our theorizing and
speculate more is clear and simple. We wish to know how the whole the-
ory will fit together. More importantly, I would claim, it is only when we
have the whole theory, or more of it, that we can properly evaluate its
claims to truth. While the theorist who wishes to defend theory T might
prefer to remain within what is considered safe in ethics, another consid-
eration must also be given weight. Adding more and more claims to the-
ory T, to move it toward completeness, will make it more vulnerable to
being disconfirmed. In fact, it is quite possible that theory T which is
10 D. KASPAR

currently staying within the bounds of safety is just one auxiliary hypoth-
esis away from being refuted. Granted, T’s being disconfirmed is not
something that its proponents will eagerly embrace. But from the perspec-
tive of the discipline of ethics as a whole, the more theories that can be
eliminated, the better it is. It is worth reflecting on the possibility that a
major factor aiding today’s proliferation of theories is artificial. Piecemeal
theorizing unwittingly protects incorrect theories from serious and legiti-
mate challenges. In effect, the current approach ends up favoring the
interests of the proponents of a given safe theory T over the interest that
ethics as a discipline has in finding the truth about its domain.
The extent to which we are dealing with partial theories is often under-
estimated. In fact, it seems to be natural today for theorists to work with
pieces of theories, and not whole theories. To see how this is so, let’s
divide theoretical constructs into ‘theories’ and ‘positions’. A theory in
ethics is a construct that at least promises to cover all the normative
domains relevant to individual conduct. A position is a smaller construct
that addresses primarily one issue in normative space. Utilitarianism is a
theory. As traditionally outfitted a utilitarian theory could cover deontic,
phronetic, axiological, aretaic, and even aesthetic matters. Utilitarianism
has something to say in all branches of metethics, obviously in normative
ethics, and in applied matters. In contrast, the claim that there are impar-
tial reasons is a position. Utilitarianism and the claim that there are impar-
tial reasons can be connected when we additionally claim that the only
kind of moral reasons are impartial ones. Clearly, however, adding this
detail will not result in the theory of utilitarianism. That evident fact justi-
fies the designation of ‘position’ for the claim that there are impartial
reasons.
The extent to which the present ethics scene is wrapped up in examin-
ing positions, not theories, is immense. Consequentialism is not a theory,
but a position. Its proponents assert that consequentialism must be com-
bined with a value theory in order to have a theory like utilitarianism.
What many consequentialists seem to hold is that the relations between
consequentialism and utilitarianism are close enough so that a gain (or a
loss) in the viability of consequentialism will be correlated with a gain (or
a loss) in the viability of a variety of consequentialism, such as utilitarian-
ism. I think that there are good reasons to doubt this. For one, the claim
that ‘that action is right that produces the most good’ has much higher
epistemic credibility than the claim that ‘that action is right that produces
the most pleasure’. The former is safe, and so ethicists of all stripes will say
 1 INTRODUCTION 11

it is more promising. But once the consequentialist lays down the details
of the theory of the good to move consequentialism toward being a the-
ory, how promising the resulting theory is will shift. To further illustrate
the difference between theories and positions, and to support the claim
that, in the final analysis, it is theories that matter most, consider Hasko
von Kriegstein’s chapter in this volume, ‘Well-Being as Harmony’. In it he
offers a new theory of well-being, harmonism: well-being is a kind of har-
mony holding between mind and world. Unless I am mistaken, pairing
this position on well-being with consequentialism would generate a the-
ory that would deliver a range of moral verdicts which would diverge sig-
nificantly from those of utilitarianism—once again demonstrating the
need and value of considering and evaluating comprehensive views.
But an expansion to a comprehensive theory could work in favor of the
same theory. And, in truth, we have no way of knowing in advance what
theoretical addition will have what implications. For example, suppose
that Kantianism undergoes a period of theoretical expansion, with propo-
nents giving it a suitable epistemology and metaphysics. Suppose they
develop an explanatory apparatus that promises convincing explanation in
some areas but appears to falter in others. As things stand Kant’s principle
of humanity, ‘Act so as to always treat humanity, whether in your own
person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always
at the same time as an end’ is more intuitively appealing as a moral propo-
sition than ‘That action is right that produces the most pleasure’. However,
if on balance, the explanatory apparatus of utilitarianism more naturally
and more effectively covers more dimensions and territories of the norma-
tive domain than a more developed Kantianism, there would be a reason
to think that the initially weak epistemic credibility of the principle of util-
ity might be sufficiently compensated for by the power of utilitarianism’s
explanatory apparatus. Compared to such comprehensive evaluations of
two theories, the results of isolated position debates, such as the
consequentialist-­deontologist one, would be counted as less significant.
The wisdom of the proposal that we move theories toward complete-
ness will be questioned. The first objection is likely to be that we have
attempted comprehensive theories in the past, and all were found to be
untenable in such forms. There is no call here to go backward in our theo-
rizing. Instead, the proposal is to expand theorizing to cover all that needs
to be covered to meet the four theoretical requirements. But if it should
turn out that no ethical system can be offered that meets such require-
ments, then the overall expansion of theorizing might indirectly reveal
12 D. KASPAR

that one form or another of moral skepticism is more theoretically promis-

ing than it is thought to be today.
There is, however, one sense in which comprehensiveness is actually
presupposed by moral theorizing, no matter how piecemeal it often
appears to be. This is most clearly seen where a theory on offer is cri-
tiqued, not for claims that it has made, but for claims that it is supposed
that it must make to be complete. Criticisms of moral realism are a case in
point. A recently popular critique of nonnatural moral realism is the
Benacerraf problem.5 As Laura and François Schroeter correctly note, the
Benacerraf problem is just a special case of what is called an integration
challenge for moral realism. Their Generalized Integration Challenge is,
‘The task of providing, for a given area, a simultaneously acceptable meta-
physics, epistemology and metasemantics, and showing them to be so’
(Schroeter and Schroeter 2019, 194). Other problems falling under this
challenge for nonnatural moral realism: the supervenience problem, the
problem of explaining self-evidence, the problem of how our intuitions
can be connected to moral facts in the world, and so on. As popular as
posing such problems to realism is, few aside from the Schroeters acknowl-
edge that such challenges only have sense on the assumption that compre-
hensive integration is theoretically critical.
However, once we recognize the importance of comprehensiveness and
theoretical expansion, we notice something curious. For any position,
there are opposing sides. If moral skeptics claim that ‘Moral facts cannot
be apprehended by the mind’, moral realists can claim, ‘Moral facts can be
apprehended by the mind’. However, if we examine the contemporary
literature, we are likely to find much more work on the moral skeptic side
of this issue than on the moral realism side. What makes this curious is that
the message seems to be, on the one hand, ‘You can’t claim that moral
facts can be apprehended by the mind. That’s speculative’, and on the
other, ‘You can claim that moral facts can’t be apprehended by the mind,
and that’s not speculative’, even though, from the present state of our
knowledge the latter claim is equally speculative. Of course, we would not
accept the moral realists’ claim just on their say-so. But we would need a
methodology that permitted the realist to explain the claim in order that
we can evaluate it. The fact is that we don’t know enough about moral
properties or minds to say conclusively what relation they have, if they do
indeed exist.

5
The Benacerraf problem is covered in Justin Clarke-Doane’s chapter in this volume.
 1 INTRODUCTION 13

5   Philosophy of Life

Comprehensive ethical theories will take into account a number of factors.
I have so far stayed within the boundaries of the common claim that ethics
is the study of morality. For much of what is discussed today this definition
is serviceable. However, an examination of the major figures in the history
of ethics would require of us a more complex, and certainly a more com-
prehensive, characterization of what is ethics. Ancient Greek and Roman
philosophers held that ethics covers the whole of life. Aristotle’s treatment
of virtue certainly covers much of what we would consider morality. It is
highly important to understand, however, that virtue, unlike morality,
covers a great deal more having to do with life as a whole. For one,
Aristotle states that ‘justice is the only virtue that seems to be another
person’s good, because it is related to another’ (1130a4). For another,
Aristotle’s other virtues include courage, temperance, prudence, wit,
friendliness, and so on. While we might have a duty to acquire virtues, we
must ask if virtues are good because they have bearing primarily on others.
It seems not. Courage is primarily good for its possessor. No one who
exhibits intemperance by having a second slice of rhubarb pie has commit-
ted a moral wrong. That indicates that if we are to understand virtues as
predominately serving one category of ends, they serve prudential ends,
not moral ones.
Ideally, ethics should be about the whole of life. And the whole of life
is what prudence covers. The ancient question of how should one live is
more naturally answered with counsels of prudence than commands of
morality. Nonetheless, the seriousness of the question of what are our
duties remains, so getting answers in moral theory retains its urgency, even
if we no longer can regard matters moral as our sole concern. Prudence
remains an understudied normative territory. Despite the decades-long
revival of virtue ethics, the study of the virtue of prudence lies dormant,
although Zagzebski (1996, Ch. 5) and Wood (2014) examine this virtue.
Also, despite a great deal of work having been done on rationality, we have
little discussion of what relation prudence has to rationality.
Studying how one ought to live in relation to the whole of life has con-
fronted obstacles in contemporary ethics. First, as I have stated, piecemeal
theorizing is favored over wholesale theorizing. Take our theorizing about
well-being today. Most of it is done in relation to the needs of eventually
coupling the theory of well-being with consequentialism, and with ques-
tions of justice in society. More must be done to employ our
14 D. KASPAR

understanding of well-being so that we can better understand what is pru-

dent for agents. Virtue ethics, which started as a rebellion against moral
theory, has, by attempting to rival Kantianism and utilitarianism, eventu-
ally become another moral theory.6 There is no reason that more work on
virtue can’t serve the end of helping agents in their lives as a whole.
Explorations in Ethics might itself serve as a basis to advance inquiry
into prudence. Three chapters featured here obviously address the topic;
with others there are definite points of contact with prudence. Michael
Smith’s ‘The Modal Conception of Ideal Rational Agents’ treads where
Aristotle and Kant stumbled. He provides a new argument for the thesis
that the ideally rational agent is ethically ideal. Hasko von Kriegstein’s
already mentioned well-being theory of harmonism provides agents sur-
prisingly actionable considerations that can enable them to make their
lives go better. Lastly, my chapter, ‘The Central Difficulty of the Moral
Life’ makes the case for why we should systematically integrate prudence
into ethics so that we can deal with the ubiquitous challenge of dealing
with our moral weaknesses—a real-life moral problem that is invisible to
moral theory.
The area currently called ‘The Philosophy of Life’ covers the whole of
life. A promising trend for the development of philosophies of life, and for
ethics generally, involves the connections being made between philosophy
and empirical psychology. Some examples include Daniel Haybron’s
(2008) book, which explores the concept of happiness in light of empirical
psychological research, and Christian Miller’s (2013) book, which explores
the concept of character with the support of empirical psychological
research. By far the most promising development in philosophy of life is
the revival of stoicism, inside and outside academic philosophy. Lawrence
Becker published the first edition of A New Stoicism in 1998. William
Irvine (2008) and Massimo Pigliucci (2017) have produced quite popular
stoicism books. Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way (2014), a book in
the success vein based on principles of stoicism, has been translated into
17 languages. Articles, videos, and blogs on how stoicism can help one in
life and business abound. The current moment is ready for the emergence
of rival schools in the philosophy of life. What might Platonism,
Aristotelianism, Epicureanism, Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism,
Thomism, Augustinianism, Nietzscheanism, existentialism, or entirely

6
Hursthouse states that virtue ethics is a ‘fairly recent addition to contemporary moral
theory’ (1999, 1).
 1 INTRODUCTION 15

new theories offer to meet the clear demand people have to know how
best to live?

6   Speculative Ethics

Everything covered so far indicates that ethics would profit greatly by
more speculation. No one I am aware of has proposed that we engage in
endless piecemeal theorizing, never drawing out of it any larger results or
connections to other normative areas, with our work never leading to
something that appears comprehensive. But at points, that seems to be our
very plan. Looking at contemporary ethics in relation to what preceded it,
some might discern a trajectory underway toward greater theoretical con-
structions. If that is accurate, I only challenge the policy that speculative
minded ethicists must wait until some juncture is reached at which greater
speculations are deemed acceptable, and the signal is given to begin. There
is no philosophical reason not to begin now. To do so we must let go of
the dogmatic spirit that declares speculation misguided, fruitless, or bar-
ren. True, there is some feature in human thinking that puts entity posit-
ing, principle constructing, system building, the affirmative side of a
dispute, at an advantage. Such activities have been abused throughout
history. But nothing prevents us from putting proper checks on them now.
The uses of speculation in ethics should not be thought to be confined
to comprehensive system building. One way of solving a persisting prob-
lem is to devise a hypothesis that puts the subject on better footing. One
way to relate two normative domains is to devise a hypothesis that enables
us to see how they might be related. One way to know how better to live
is to take truths of life, well-supported counsels, and devise a hypothesis
that brings them all together in a comprehensive life vision. Although
much of our current research is based on speculations of great philoso-
phers from the past, it seems that in ethics today we are much in need of
some outstanding speculators. While piecemeal theorizing has its benefits,
and risk-aversion is warranted wherever close reasoning is called for, we
are much in need of some new hypotheses.
So how might speculative ethics be conducted? What might it look like?
The first thing to note is that speculative ethics is only against piecemeal-­
only theorizing. It is not a competing alternative to contemporary ethics
but a complementary strand of theorizing. In fact, speculation is involved
in piecemeal theorizing itself. Once more comparisons emerge of theory
to theory, we will be better able to interpret the meaning of the results of
16 D. KASPAR

piecemeal theorizing. There is certainly little value in speculation that is

not clearly connected to explanation. For instance, we don’t simply wish
to posit entities, assert that they explain some moral phenomenon, with-
out clearly stating how they would do so. Putting things differently, we
don’t wish to reverse wholesale the analytic revolution. We wish to find
out how we can suitably add new hypotheses, and new lines of inquiry in
ethics, in such a way that they are still subject to high standards of inquiry.

7   Methodology
Speculations are often such that we have no way to readily confirm or
disconfirm them. But that in itself is no reason to discourage them. The
strategy of inference to the best explanation should be extended over the
whole normative domain. The theory that explains more and more of the
normative phenomena is more likely true. So patience is counseled in eval-
uating theories. One check on extravagant hypotheses is to be found in
theorists themselves. A speculation made by a seasoned philosopher has
behind it more experience, insight, knowledge, and familiarity with the
terrain than one newer to the tasks of philosophy. The production of spec-
ulations cannot be reduced to a strict methodology. An ethicist works with
data, other theories, is grappling with several theoretical problems, mis-
matches between data and theory, and a hypothesis seems to solve prob-
lems and explain data, bringing things together.
How one might arrive at such a hypothesis will vary from individual to
individual.
Since speculation is, at least initially, an individual activity, it would
seem most fruitful to allow ethicists to speculate in the way they see fit. As
Carlyle states, ‘Wise man was he who counselled that Speculation should
have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two points of
the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed’ (Carlyle 1987, 5).
Along such lines, it would seem that ethics would profit most from a situ-
ation in which the methodological constraints that govern theorizing in
ethics today would be loosened on the basis of what each individual ethi-
cist sees as a promising route to truth.
Here is a modest methodological recommendation for ethical specula-
tion. It is capable of integrating itself into current practices of ethics.
Speculation might require lifting some constraints on ethical theorizing—
such as the presupposition that ‘ethics’ has been a single subject matter
throughout history; the presupposition that there is but a single normative
 1 INTRODUCTION 17

domain in ethics; the practice that ethical thought must be based on the
existing ethics literature; the belief that because a claim is something we
are more likely to agree on, no matter what our theoretical bent, that it is
more likely to be true than a claim that we are unlikely to agree on; the
assumption that positing an additional entity is unwarranted unless one
can prove at that point that it exists; the assumption that ethics is some-
thing we do in an office and not something we live; and the belief that a
contemporary consensus in ethics has an evidentiary significance similar to
a contemporary consensus in a hard science. The list could be extended.
The recommendation is that we allow and encourage theorists to lift a
single methodological constraint that we otherwise require to be in place.
Say what constraint you are lifting, and speculate.

8   The Chapters

‘Bold and speculative inquiries are preferred to papers that primarily
defend ground already gained or papers that are primarily scholarly’. That
statement was included in the Call for Papers for the Speculative Ethics
Forum. The chapters in this volume are in a speculative direction. Each is
a reflection of the inquiries that seem promising to the individual inquirer.
To what extent or in what place any of them fits into the larger issues just
covered varies. The order in which they are arranged is roughly from the
most abstract to the most concrete. Although there are several grounds on
which they can be evaluated, an apposite standard for the speculative
standpoint is found in what speculations are spurred by the volume.
Katja Maria Vogt leads the way with a discussion of the concept ‘good’.
Her analysis in Chap. 2, ‘The Euthyphro Problem Revisited’, should have
us thinking of Plato’s theory of good quite differently than we do now.
The Euthyphro Problem is put to different uses, both in writing and in
teaching. According to Vogt, seizing upon a single passage and extracting
a claim for our uses, while neglecting important parts of Plato’s dialectic
at work, can lead to a distorted understanding of his theory of good. The
Euthyphro Problem provides a framework neither from which to make the
case for value realism nor from which to make the case for divine com-
mand theory. Properly understanding the argument of Euthyphro should
instead lead us to see that it, as Vogt states, ‘offers a refutation of relativ-
ism, finds a place for anti-realism, sketches the beginnings of realism about
the good, and envisages a kind of value that is realist and yet constituted
by attitudes’.
18 D. KASPAR

Chapter 3 by Justin Clarke-Doane is ‘Realism, Objectivity, and

Evaluation’. One challenge to normative realism that is recently receiving
a good deal of attention was formulated by Benacerraf for mathematical
realism. The ‘Benacerraf challenge’ is with equal strength applied to nor-
mative realism. If there are indeed mind-independent normative truths
that are outside the naturalistic system studied by the empirical sciences,
how can we reliably believe them, given that our minds are part of this
naturalistic system? One quite promising response given in the philosophy
of mathematics is mathematical pluralism. This view holds that there are
alternative mathematical concepts just as there are alternative geometries.
The surprising implication of this view is that realism is saved at the expense
of objectivity. Can a normative pluralism similarly save normative realism
from the Benacerraf challenge? The viability of such a view is put in ques-
tion by the fact that normative judgments have a critical disanalogy with
mathematical ones: in any given situation there is only one act we can
perform.
Michael Smith tackles what is perhaps the greatest kind of challenge in
ethics in Chap. 4, ‘The Modal Conception of Ideal Rational Agents:
Objectively Ideal Not Merely Subjectively Ideal, Advisors Not Exemplars,
Agentially Concerned Not Agentially Indifferent, Social not Solitary, Self-­
and-­Other-Regarding Not Wholly Self-Regarding’. Glaucon challenged
Socrates in Plato’s Republic to justify living a just life on its own terms. In
his chapter, Smith argues for a similar claim, that ideally rational agents are
ethically ideal. Smith attempts to close the gap between the ideally rational
and the ethically ideal from the ground up, and on the fewest assumptions.
The keys to his argument are three facts: to be rational we must satisfy our
desires, know how to satisfy our desires, and recognize that life is lived
over time. Given these facts, an ideally rational agent will make sure that
their capacities for desire-satisfaction and for knowledge-acquisition are
not hindered, and are protected over time. Step by step Smith shows how
such an agent will do something similar for others, in this way being ethi-
cally ideal.
Making choices involves evaluating outcomes. A choice with just two
options might be difficult. But it is when we have three options of compa-
rable values that situations require practical reasoning based on Axioms of
Transitivity. In Chap. 5, ‘To Boldly Go Where No Man, or Woman, Has
Gone Before!’, Larry Temkin challenges these axioms, especially the one
that is formulated thus: for any three outcomes, A, B, and C, if, all things
considered, A is better than B, and all things considered, B is better than
 1 INTRODUCTION 19

C, then, all things considered, A is better than C. This principle can be

challenged for individual, personal choices. But things get more interest-
ing when we consider its application to population ethics, where large-­
scale outcomes impacting millions are involved. Temkin employs certain
thought experiments to demonstrate that our belief that All Things Better
Than transitivity holds under all conditions is not as secure as we might
think. He then turns to another set of common assumptions for normative
judgments: we think that morality requires that we are neutral with respect
to people, places, and times. By considering and comparing the lives and
deaths of civilizations in different galaxies, Temkin shows that in certain
contexts these assumptions of neutrality are also upended.
Hasko von Kriegstein presents a new theory of well-being in Chap. 6,
‘Well-Being as Harmony’. Although he recognizes predecessor adherents
of the view, the theory presented here provides distinct and detailed
aspects of harmony in a unified way. The result is an account of well-being
that has explanatory power for different areas of life. Popular theories of
well-being such as hedonism and the desire-satisfaction view are initially
explanatorily appealing. Nonetheless, they often prove to be thin and
seem not to add needed action-guiding information for agents. Von
Kriegstein’s view identifies three areas in which a mind-world harmony is
desirable: our intentional mental states should correspond with the world;
we should have positive mental attitudes toward the world; we should
respond in fitting ways to the world. These three prongs of the view pro-
vide us with quite plausible dimensions of well-being. When they are all
taken together, we find enough detail to make the picture that we form of
well-being relatively more substantial. This account might additionally
capture what is involved in our justifiably feeling good about things. Also,
it might explain how we understand well-being where others are con-
cerned. Parents who see that their children are out of tune with the world
have reason to be concerned with their well-being.
The necessity of principles for moral choice, and for the discipline of
ethics, had long been taken for granted. The theory called particularism
challenged that presupposition. In Chap. 7, ‘On Moral Architecture’,
Diana Heney develops a new way of approaching the particularism-­
generalism debate. According to her, the reasons-first approach underly-
ing that debate places undue emphasis on moral metaphysics, on what
entities are fundamental. Rejecting that approach, she introduces a
practice-­first approach to ethics questions. Considering matters in this way
is to recognize the importance of what people do, how they deliberate,
20 D. KASPAR

and, critically, how we work at living together. It is in the context of the

practices of agents living together that morality is an issue at all. Principles
are necessary to the moral education of agents, to settling disagreements,
and to making the intersections of our lives such that we can prevent con-
flict. Consideration of these matters better equips us to see the importance
and practical necessity of moral principles.
Agents often do wrong without setting out to do so. We can enter situ-
ations in which, unfortunately, an immoral option appears the most attrac-
tive one. In such cases we are set up to succumb to moral weakness.
R.M. Hare considered moral weakness the central difficulty of the moral
life. In Chap. 8, ‘The Central Difficulty of the Moral Life’, I address the
problem moral weakness poses. Moral weakness is a practical problem we
all must deal with. But it poses a problem for ethics because ethics is
entirely ill-equipped to deal with it. That alone shows that there is some-
thing seriously missing from the contemporary moral theoretical frame-
work that dominates ethics. By analyzing that framework, we can see its
several deficiencies. Here I propose an alternative framework for ethics,
which crucially integrates prudential considerations, one which can pro-
vide action-guiding information so agents can deal with moral weakness.
Leo Zaibert examines moral desert and assesses moral theories on how
they evaluate what agents deserve. Chapter 9, ‘Desert-Sensitivity and
Moral Evaluation’, more specifically seeks to find just what is problematic
with consequentialist theories where desert is concerned. Consequentialism
famously sees no value in giving people what they deserve. Zaibert ana-
lyzes certain puzzles put forth by Shelly Kagan, who, despite being a con-
sequentialist, regards desert-sensitivity as being a necessary feature of any
plausible moral theory. One conclusion that Kagan draws from his puzzles
is that desert-sensitivity creates a certain indeterminacy in morality.
According to Zaibert, the indeterminacies revealed by Kagan’s puzzles
have to do with the evaluations we make of the agents in the puzzle sce-
narios. Rather than attempting to remove what gives rise to indetermina-
cies where evaluations of agents are concerned, Zaibert claims that what is
revealed is just how pervasive they are in life. What it actually shows is the
need to take into account history in our evaluations of agents. Whether
someone deserves praise or blame for an action depends, in part, on the
history behind their action.
We sometimes hear someone say that ‘the boss didn’t treat Jones like a
person’. This is undoubtedly a moral criticism of, in this case, how the
boss treated Jones. It is unclear, however, what the substance of the
 1 INTRODUCTION 21

criticism is. For the wrongdoer in the situation certainly knew that Jones
is a person. In Chap. 10, ‘Interpersonal Invisibility and the Recognition of
Other Persons’, Aleksy Tarasenko-Struc provides an account that can
make sense of the moral criticism. What Tarasenko-Struc calls the ‘classifi-
cation model’ can’t make sense of the constellation of facts involved in
Jones’s mistreatment. That view claims that interpersonal recognition
consists simply in recognizing what kind of entity the other is. The engage-
ment model, in contrast, takes into account the emotional involvement
and the practical engagement one person has with another. Such engage-
ment importantly involves entering the other person’s perspective. This
model accounts for how agents who mistreat others can be well aware of
their target’s real human qualities, but nonetheless not treat them as
persons.
Critics of the retributivist theory of punishment claim it is motivated by
the desire for vengeance and issues from feelings of resentment.
Retributivism and the liberal state are given blame for the punitive US
penal system. In Chap. 11, ‘Censure, Sanction, and the Moral Psychology
of Resentment and Punitiveness’, Jonathan Jacobs sets out to clear retrib-
utivism and liberalism of these charges. The real culprit for the current
state of the penal system is a democratic populism, not a theory of punish-
ment, nor a political theory. The record shows that prominent retributiv-
ists have advocated for greater leniency in our carceral system. Adam
Smith, a seminal liberal thinker, argued that resentment is actually condu-
cive to justice in society. Resenting injustice is a safeguard of justice. So a
system of liberty in which resentments are directed at the right targets
would result in a less punitive system than we have today.
Beauchamp and Childress’s Principles of Biomedical Ethics has an
immense influence in its field. Its four principles of Autonomy, Beneficence,
Non-maleficence, and Justice are widely used to consider ethical cases. In
Chap. 12, ‘A Natural Law Approach to Biomedical Ethics’, Melissa
Moschella presents a deeper, underlying system of principles that gives a
foundation for the four principles and controls them in such a way that
they don’t lead to implausible verdicts. Moschella draws from natural law
theory, in the tradition of Aquinas, Grisez, Finnis, and George, to provide
a substantive and intelligible basis for our moral judgments. Beginning
with a controversial test case, which shows how Beauchamp and Childress’s
four principles can easily lead us astray, she ends by showing how natural
law theory can enable us to make convincing corrections to such a case.
22 D. KASPAR

The significance of doing so is to show that natural law theory promises a

better system of applied ethics than the received view.
When parents are concerned about the corruption of youth, one of the
first arts to which they assign blame is music. Rock ’n Roll, Punk, Heavy
Metal, and Gangsta Rap are the traditional villains. In Chap. 13, ‘The
Corruptions of Music’, Peter Simpson argues that while the parents have
a point, all Western music, including Bach’s, is to blame. But Bach’s com-
positions are not to blame. Instead, it is the innovation of the equal-­
tempered scale that is corrupting our characters. Classical music
afficionados, as well as head-banging youth, are being tuned by music to
be in a state of perpetual restlessness. The equal-tempered scale allows for
no natural resolution. That is why our souls remain ever unsatisfied, even
if we are listening to apparently calming music. Simpson claims that mod-
ern music makes us slaves of passion. Worse, this state of our souls makes
us ready to be the tools of tyranny.

Acknowledgment I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for quite helpful

comments.

References
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Carlyle, Thomas. 1987. Sartor Resartus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Glock, Hans-Johann. 2008. What Is Analytic Philosophy? Cambridge: Cambridge
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Haybron, Daniel. 2008. The Pursuit of Unhappiness–The Elusive Psychology of Well-­
Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Holiday, Ryan. 2014. The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials
into Triumph. New York: Portfolio.
Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Irvine, William B. 2008. A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kagan, Shelly. 1998. Normative Ethics. Boulder: Westview Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1993. Critique of Practical Reason. 3rd ed., Trans. Lewis White
Beck. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Kaspar, David. 2016. Ross’s Place in the History of Analytic Philosophy. British
Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (4): 657–674.
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Miller, Christian. 2013. Moral Character: An Empirical Theory. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.
Parfit, Derek. 2011. On What Matters. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pettit, Philip. 1993. Introduction. In Consequentialism, ed. Philip Pettit. London:
Dartmouth Press.
Pigliucci, Massimo. 2017. How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a
Modern Life. New York: Basic Books.
Ross, William David. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Russell, Bertrand. 1956. The Philosophy of Logical Atomism. In Logic and
Knowledge, ed. Robert Charles Marsh, 175–281. London: Routledge.
Schroeter, Laura, and François Schroeter. 2019. The Generalized Integration
Challenge in Metaethics. Nous 53 (1): 192–223.
Schwartz, Stephen P. 2012. A Brief History of Analytic Philosophy: From Russell to
Rawls. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Stout, Rowland. 2010. Twentieth-Century Moral Philosophy. In The Routledge
Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy, ed. Dermot Moran, 851–882.
London: Routledge.
Stratton-Lake, Philip. 2000. Kant, Duty, and Moral Worth. London: Routledge.
Wood, W. Jay. 2014. Prudence. In Virtues and Their Vices, ed. Kevin Timpe and
Craig S. Boyd, 37–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 1996. Virtues of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
 CHAPTER 2

The Euthyphro Problem Revisited

Katja Maria Vogt

It is a fairly consensual view that Plato’s Euthyphro is the ‘urtext’ of meta-

ethics.1 And yet, standard specifications of this view go astray. The
Euthyphro is often thought to illustrate the concerns of Divine Command
Theory. It is also thought to be the ancestor of metaethical realism, the
view that value is attitude-independent. As I argue, the Euthyphro is nei-
ther concerned with Divine Command Theory nor is it a defense of real-
ism in today’s sense. Instead, the Euthyphro argues that there is realist
value, anti-realist value, and value that is both.
Plato’s proposal should strike us as radically revisionist, to the extent
that it is not clear whether today’s philosophical ‘map’ can accommodate
it. This, I submit, is why the Euthyphro deserves our attention. On stan-
dard readings, Plato is a dull dogmatist, rather than an ingenious philoso-
pher raised on a steady diet of rebellious ideas by the likes of Heraclitus,
Parmenides, Socrates, and Protagoras. On my reading, the Euthyphro
offers a refutation of relativism, finds a place for anti-realism, sketches the

1
This chapter develops further ideas from Vogt (2017, ch. 3). I am grateful for comments
to Justin Clarke-Doane, Molly Gurdon, and Jens Haas.

K. M. Vogt (*)
Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

© The Author(s) 2020 25

D. Kaspar (ed.), Explorations in Ethics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48051-6_2
26 K. M. VOGT

beginnings of realism about the good, and envisages a kind of value that is
realist and yet constituted by attitudes.
After a brief conspectus of how philosophers reconstruct the so-called
Euthyphro Problem (Sect. 1), I sketch the most important bits of text
(Sects. 2 and 3). Then, I turn to contemporary work by Richard Swinburne,
Connie Rosati, Selim Berker, Crispin Wright, and Sharon Street that
invokes the Euthyphro. I argue that each of them makes some interesting
suggestions, discussion of which permits a deeper appreciation of the dia-
logue’s proposals (Sects. 4, 5, 6, and 7). Future work on the Euthyphro,
however, can do even better—by appreciating Plato’s distinction between
kinds of value (Sect. 8).

1   Formulating the Euthyphro Problem

The so-called Euthyphro Problem presents a choice between two options,
(1) and (2). Given the problem’s fame, any number of formulations of
these options have been proposed. Call this the Divine Command
Formulation:2

(DC1) God’s law-giving captures what is, independent of these laws, pious.
(DC2) God’s law-giving creates the pious.

Somewhat closer to the terms of the dialogue, here is the Divine Love
Formulation:

(DL1) The gods love what is, independent of their love, pious.
(DL2) The love of the gods confers the property pious.

The problem can also be taken to be about any property and any property-­
conferring relation whatsoever. Call this the General Formulation:

(G1) Y detects F and relates to it as being F.

(G2) Y’s attitudes create F.

Given the dialogue’s concern with value, there is also the Value
Formulation:

2
Cf. Irwin (2006) on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century engagement with the
Euthyphro.
 2 THE EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM REVISITED 27

(V1) Y detects value and relates to it as value.

(V2) Y’s attitudes create value.

None of these four formulations, I argue, gets things right.3 I call my own
proposal the Kinds of Value Formulation:

(K1) A pious action is god-loved because it is pious.

(K2) A pious action is pious because it is god-loved.

The Kinds of Value Formulation flags that Plato is concerned with the
relation between two values: the pious and the god-loved. If there are
further values like the pious and like the god-loved, Plato is concerned
with two kinds of value: the pious and whatever may be like it, and the
god-loved and whatever may be like it. In putting things this way, I am
assuming that pious and god-loved are value properties—in short, val-
ues—and that a value is different in kind from another value if its meta-
physics is different. Consider, then, the text where (1) and (2) are
formulated.

2   The Euthyphro Problem

Euthyphro suggests that the pious is what all the gods love (9e1–3).
Socrates would like to know what this means (9e6–7). He drops the all-­
quantifier (‘what all the gods love’), and asks the question that is tradi-
tionally referred to as ‘the’ Euthyphro Problem—from hereon, EP:

T1 S: (1) Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or (2)
is it pious because it is being loved by the gods? (10a1–3; numer-
als added)4

Socrates offers his respondent two choices. Accordingly, I call (1) and (2)
‘options.’ But I also call (1) and (2) ‘positions’ or ‘claims,’ referring to the
claims that respondents endorse by picking one of the two options.
At times, philosophers speak of the Euthyphro Dilemma. This label
supposes that (1) and (2) are dilemmatic; in other words, the label sup-
poses that both positions fail. This assumption is not far-fetched. The

3
For present purposes, I won’t engage extensively with scholarly literature. Regarding
recent contributions, my approach owes most to Judson (2010).
4
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are by Grube, reprinted in Plato (1997).
28 K. M. VOGT

choice between (1) and (2) is formulated as a means of thinking through

a definition Euthyphro proposes, namely, that the pious is the god-loved.
This definition appears, throughout the dialogue’s conversation, flawed.
But this does not mean that both (1) and (2) must be misguided.
The eventual dismissal of ‘the pious is the god-loved’ is the dismissal of
an identity statement. It is possible—and indeed, it is Socrates’s pro-
posal—that the identity statement ‘the pious is the god-loved’ is false,
while (1) is true. In intuitive terms, it is entirely possible that the pious is
loved by the gods on account of its being pious, while pious and god-­
loved are two different properties. If this is what the text says, the
Euthyphro Problem is not a dilemma. (1) holds, and (2) is rejected.
Right after T1, Euthyphro is not yet in a position to choose between
the two options. He doesn’t understand the question. Socrates explains to
Euthyphro what it is he is asking via a comparison between god-loved and
other properties such as carried, led, and seen:

T2 S: 
Tell me then whether the thing carried is a carried thing
(φερόμενον) because it is being carried, or for some other reason?
E: No, that is the reason.
S: And the thing led (ἀγόμενον) is so because it is being led, and the
thing seen (ὁρώμενόν) because it is being seen?
E: Certainly.
S: It is not being seen because it is a thing seen but on the contrary
it is a thing seen because it is being seen; nor is it because it is
something led that it is being led but because it is being led that
it is something led; nor is something being carried because it is
something carried, but it is something carried because it is being
carried. Is what I want to say clear, Euthyphro? I want to say this,
namely, that if anything is being changed or is being affected in
any way, it is not being changed because it is something changed,
but rather it is something changed (γιγνόμενόν) because it is
being changed; nor is it being affected because it is something
affected, but it is something affected (πάσχον) because it is being
affected. Or do you not agree?
E: I do.
S: Is something loved either something changed or something
affected by something?
E: Certainly.
 2 THE EUTHYPHRO PROBLEM REVISITED 29

S: So it is in the same case as the things just mentioned; it is not being

loved by those who love it because it is something loved, but it is
something loved because it is being loved by them? (10b–c)

God-loved, the claim is, is like carried, led, and seen. Two observations
should stand out to us. First, pious is not a property of the relevant type.
Second, the general feature that god-loved, carried, led, and seen share is
that they are instances of something either being changed or affected in
some other way. The Greek terms relating to change and affect may mis-
lead one into thinking of a causal relation. But Plato’s list of properties
does not support this reading.5 A bird is seen in virtue of being seen by a
cognizer. The bird is not causally affected by being seen, and yet the bird
comes to have the quality seen.
God-loved is like this. It is a property something has in virtue of being
loved. In terms of the Greek text, it is a pathos, a passively acquired prop-
erty, conferred on something by the activity of something else. The bird is
qualified via a relation that is external to what it independently is.
Independently, it is a bird; via a relation to something else, it is seen. Seen,
carried, led, and god-loved are relational properties that involve one-­
directional activity.
Once the metaphysics of god-loved qua pathos is spelled out, Socrates
reformulates EP:

T3 S: Well, then, what is it that we are saying about the pious,

Euthyphro? Surely that it is loved by all the gods, as your
account stated?
E: Yes.
S: Is it loved because of this—because it is pious—or because of
something else?
E: No, because of this.
S: Then it is loved because it is pious, but it is not pious because it
is loved?
E: So it seems. (10d1–8, tr. Judson 2010)

And now the claim is that, while something comes to have the quality
god-loved on account of being loved, it is not the case that something

5
Cf. Judson (2010, 21) on ‘because’-vocabulary in 10a1–11b4.
30 K. M. VOGT

comes to have the property pious on account of being loved. This is why
‘the pious is the god-loved’ is false:

T4 S: Then the god-loved is not the same as the pious, Euthyphro, nor
the pious the same as the god-loved, as you say it is, but one dif-
fers from the other. (10d)

Not only are god-loved and pious not identical. The god-loved is a pathos,
and the pious isn’t.

T5 S: I’m afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is,
you did not wish to make its nature clear to me, but you told me
an affect or quality of it, that the pious has the quality of being
loved by all the gods, but you have not yet told me what the pious
is. (11b–c)

God-loved, on this account, is a pathos that some action may have. Indeed,
Socrates seems to endorse ‘the pious is the god-loved’ in this sense: the
gods love the pious and thus the pious comes to have the property god-
loved. But this does not tell us the ‘what it is’—the eidos or form—of the
pious.6 So far, we only know that pious is not identical with god-loved and
that it is not itself a pathos. Notably, the text doesn’t say that the pious is a
realist property, a property that something ‘simply’ has, independent of
any relations and attitudes. All we know is that the god-­loved is a pathos,
and the pious is something else. This analysis motivates my Kinds of Value
Formulation:

(K1) A pious action is god-loved because it is pious.

(K2) A pious action is pious because it is god-loved.

(K1) and (K2) examine two properties, the god-loved and the pious. This
observation single-handedly rules out readings according to which EP is
concerned solely with an account of the pious, as well as readings accord-
ing to which EP is concerned with value in general.

6
The Euthyphro contains vocabulary that, in later dialogues, figures in Plato’s Theory of
the Forms. Socrates says that he is not interested in examples of the pious, but in the form
(eidos), the one idea (mia idea) that everything which is X displays and in using this as a
model (paradeigma) (6d, cf. 5d). If we know what the form itself is, we will be able to judge
whether particular actions are pious or not (6e).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
farmer said he could not take strangers into his barn in its present
state, as his summer’s cheese, and many other things, were lodged
there. “D—n your cheese,” replied Charlie; “do you think, old boy,
that I would lay down my honesty for your trash o’ cheese?” They
parted, and Charlie got permission from the gudewife for himself, as
there were no others with him. The farmer came home late, and
knew not that Charlie was there. In the morning when he went into
the barn, he was astonished to find it all in an uproar. Upwards of
twenty individuals—men, women, and children—were lying among
the straw. The wife was called upon to see what state the barn was in;
and the old man, in no very soft voice, railed at her for admitting
such a band. She replied that she would send them away quietly: and
this she did by giving them as much brose and milk as they could
take. On their departure, Charlie told him he was a mean old crab,
and that his wife was worth a hundred of him. However, he kept his
word as to the cheese, and nothing was touched.
In the market next day, a good deal of business was done in his
way; several pockets were picked, and a number of petty thefts
committed. Charlie being in the habit of dealing with respectable
merchants for horn spoons, he was one day in the shop getting
payment for a parcel. The money was counted down, but during the
time his wife was taking it up, the merchant turned to speak to some
one in the shop; the wife, on taking up the money, said she wanted
five shillings; the merchant said he was positive he laid down the
whole. She still insisted that she wanted five shillings, and the
merchant was determined to resist; on which Charlie interfered,
saying, “Come, come, ye limmer, down with the money; none of your
tricks here.”
At one time he took it into his head to enlist for a regiment in
India, with a party in Perth; he did very well until they were ordered
to join the regiment. All the recruits being assembled but Charlie, he
at last was found drinking in a public-house, but would not stir a
foot. The officer was got, and the party attempted, after fair means
had failed, to take him by force. They only got him the length of the
street, when he drew a short bludgeon from an inside pocket, and
laid about him from right to left, in such a way that the whole were
soon sprawling on the street, and he escaped. The officer, seeing
what kind of a character he was, desired the sergeant not to look
after him, as he would have nothing to do with him.
At all the fairs he was present with his gang. If any row
commenced he was sure to take a lead,—and whichever party he
joined were generally left masters of the field. One midsummer
market at Perth, a dreadful row got up between the weavers and the
farmer lads, hundreds of whom attended the market at that time.
Charlie and his friends joined the weavers; the streets were soon in a
perfect uproar; the chapmen’s stands were upset, and themselves
tumbled in the midst of their goods; sweeties and gingerbread were
scattered in all directions by the pressure of the contending parties;
and broken heads and faces were to be seen in abundance. The whole
fair was thrown into a dreadful state of confusion, until a party of
military were brought out, who at length succeeded in restoring
order; but Charlie and his friends were not to be found. Many
individuals lost their hats, &c., and got bruised bones and torn coats;
it was also discovered that many pockets had been picked during the
affray.
Charlie had often been convicted of theft, imprisoned, and
banished the county. He not unfrequently made his escape by
breaking out of prison; but was at length apprehended for horse
stealing; and during his confinement was put in irons, in one of the
strong cages in the old jail. During his imprisonment he was very
cheerful, often declaring they could have no proof against him; but a
short time convinced him of his folly. He was tried, found guilty, and
sentenced to be hanged. When brought out to execution, he was
attended by four artillerymen, for fear of resistance. He recognised
many of his old acquaintances in the multitude—particularly the
merchant with whom he dealt in spoons, and gave him a bow and a
wave of his hand. When the fatal hour approached he appeared quite
subdued, and submitted to his fate with calm resignation. After his
body was cut down it was conveyed to the grave by an immense
multitude; the coffin was opened and filled with quicklime, to render
it useless for the surgeon.
Charlie’s death was a severe loss to the gang; immediately after
this Charlie Brown, his brother-in-law, became leader. This fellow,
although not so large a man, was stout, firmly built, of great activity,
and, like Graham, had been frequently in the hands of the law, and
made shift to get clear, until at last the fiscal was determined to have
him. It being ascertained that he was in the neighbourhood, a party
of light dragoons was sent out with the officers, who traced him to
Auchtergaven. When he saw the party, he set off through the fields,
until fairly run down by two of the horsemen, and brought to Perth.
This desperate character had on him about eighty guineas; he was
charged with several crimes, convicted, and sent to Botany Bay for
life. After this the gang, who had for a long period infested the
country, dispersed, and was seldom heard of.—Traditions of Perth.
 THE SNOWING-UP OF STRATH LUGAS;
OR, THE MATCH-MAKING LAIRD.

Jolly old Simon Kirkton! thou art the very high-priest of Hymen.
There is something softly persuasive to matrimony in thy contented,
comfortable appearance; and thy house,—why, though it is situated
in the farthest part of Inverness-shire, it is as fertile in connubial joys
as if it were placed upon Gretna Green. Single blessedness is a term
unknown in thy vocabulary; heaven itself would be a miserable place
for thee, for there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage!
Half the county was invited to a grand dinner and ball at Simon’s
house in January 1812. All the young ladies had looked forward to it
in joyous anticipation and hope, and all the young gentlemen, with
considerable expectation—and fear. Everything was to be on the
greatest scale: the dinner in the ancient hall, with the two family
pipers discoursing sweet music between the courses, and the ball in
the splendid new drawing-room, with a capital band from the county
town. The Duke was to be there with all the nobility, rank, and
fashion of the district; and, in short, such a splendid entertainment
had never been given at Strath Lugas in the memory of man. The
editor of the county paper had a description of it in type a month
before, and the milliners far and near never said their prayers
without a supplication for the health of Mr Kirkton. All this time that
worthy gentleman was not idle. The drawing-room was dismantled
of its furniture, and the floors industriously chalked over with
innumerable groups of flowers. The larder was stocked as if for a
siege; the domestics drilled into a knowledge of their duties; and
every preparation completed in the most irreproachable style. I
question whether Gunter ever dreamt of such a supper as was laid
out in the dining-room: venison in all its forms, and fish of every
kind. It would have victualled a seventy-four to China.
 The day came at last,—a fine, sharp, clear day, as ever gave a bluish
tinge to the countenance, or brought tears to “beauty’s eye.” There
had been a great fall of snow a few days before, but the weather
seemed now settled into a firm, enduring frost. The laird had not
received a single apology, and waited in the hall along with his lady
to receive the guests as they arrived.
“My dear, isna that a carriage coming up the Brose-fit-knowe?
Auld Leddy Clavers, I declare. She’ll be going to dress here, and the
three girls. Anne’s turned religious; so I’m thinking she’s ower auld
to be married. It’s a pity the minister’s no coming: his wife’s just
dead; but Jeanie’ll be looking out for somebody. We maun put her
next to young Gerfluin. Elizabeth’s a thocht ower young; she can stay
at the side-table with Tammy Maxwell—he’s just a hobbletehoy—it
wad be a very good match in time.”
In this way, as each party made its appearance, the laird arranged
in a moment the order in which every individual was to be placed at
table; and even before dinner, he had the satisfaction of seeing his
guests breaking off into the quiet tête-à-têtes, which the noise and
occupation of a general company render sweet and secluded as a
meeting “by moonlight alone.” While his eye wandered round the
various parties thus pleasantly engaged, it rested on the figure of a
very beautiful girl whom he had not previously remarked. She sat
apart from all the rest, and was amusing herself with looking at the
pictures suspended round the room, apparently unconscious of the
presence of so many strangers. She seemed in deep thought; but as
she gazed on the representation of a battlepiece, her face changed its
expression from the calmness of apathy to the most vivid
enthusiasm.
“Mercy on us a’!” whispered the laird to his wife, “wha’s she that?
that beautiful young lassie in the white goon? An’ no’ a young
bachelor within a mile o’ her. Deil ane o’ them deserves such an
angel!”
“It’s a Miss Mowbray,” was the reply; “she came with Mrs
Carmichael,—a great heiress they say: it’s the first time she was ever
in Scotland.”
“Aha! say ye sae? Then we’ll see if we canna keep her among us
noo that she is come. Angus M‘Leod—na, he’ll no do—he’s a gude
enough lad, but he’s no bonnie. Chairlie Fletcher—he wad do weel
enough; but I’m thinking he’ll do better for Bell Johnson. ’Od,
donnered auld man, no to think o’ him before! Chairlie Melville’s the
very man—the handsomest, bravest, cleverest chield she could hae;
and if she’s gotten the siller, so much the better for Chairlie—they’ll
mak a bonnie couple.”
And in an instant the laird laid his hand on the shoulder of a young
man, who was engaged with a knot of gentlemen discussing some
recent news from the Peninsula, and dragging him away, said,—
“For shame, Chairlie, for shame! Do you no see that sweet, modest
lassie a’ by hersel? Gang up to her this minute—bide by her as lang as
ye can—she’s weel worth a’ the attention ye can pay her. Miss
Mowbray,” he continued, “I’m sorry my friend, Mrs Carmichael, has
left ye sae much to yoursel; but here’s Chairlie, or rather I should say,
Mr Charles, or rather I should say, Lieutenant Charles Melville, that
will be happy to supply her place. He’ll tak ye in to yer dinner, and
dance wi’ ye at the ball.”
“All in place of Mrs Carmichael, sir?” replied the young lady, with
an arch look.
“Weel said, my dear, weel said; but I maun leave younger folks to
answer ye. I’ve seen the time I wadna hae been very blate to gie ye an
answer that wad hae stoppit your ‘wee bit mou, sae sweet and
bonnie.’” Saying these words, and whispering to his young friend,
“Stick till her, Chairlie,” he bustled off, “on hospitable thoughts
intent,” to another part of the room.
After the introduction, the young people soon entered into
conversation; and, greatly to the laird’s satisfaction, the young
soldier conducted Miss Mowbray into the hall, sat next her all the
time of dinner, and seemed as delighted with his companion as the
most match-making lady or gentleman could desire. The lady, on the
other hand, seemed in high spirits, and laughed at the remarks of her
neighbour with the greatest appearance of enjoyment.
“How long have you been with Mrs Carmichael?”
“I came the day before yesterday.”
“Rather a savage sort of country, I am afraid, you find this, after
the polished scenes of your own land?”
“Do you mean the country,” replied the lady, “or the inhabitants?
They are not nearly such savages as I expected; some of them seem
half-civilised.”
“It is only your good-nature that makes you think us so. When you
know us better, you will alter your opinion.”
“Nay; now don’t be angry, or talk as all other Scotch people do,
about your national virtues. I know you are a very wonderful people
—your men all heroes, your peasants philosophers, and your women
angels; but seriously, I was very much disappointed to find you so
like other people.”
“Why, what did you expect? Did you think we were ‘men whose
heads do grow beneath their shoulders?’”
“No, I did not expect that; but I expected to find everything
different from what I had been accustomed to. Now, the company
here are dressed just like a party in England, and behave in the same
manner. Even the language is intelligible at times; though the laird, I
must say, would require an interpreter.”
“Ah, the jolly old laird! His face is a sort of polyglot dictionary—it
is the expression for good-humour, kindness, and hospitality, in all
languages.”
“And who is that at his right hand?”
“What? the henchman? That’s Rory M‘Taggart—he was piper for
twenty years in the 73d, and killed three men with his own hand at
Vimiera.”
“And is that the reason he is called the henchman?”
“Yes; henchman means, ‘the piper with the bloody hand—the
slaughterer of three.’”
“What a comprehensive word! It is almost equal to the laird’s
face.”
But here the laird broke in upon their conversation.
“Miss Mowbray, dinna be frightened at a’ the daft things the wild
sodger is saying to you.” Then he added, in a lower tone, “Chairlie
wad settle down into a douce, quiet, steady, married man, for a’ his
tantrums. It wad be a pity if a Frenchman’s gun should spoil his
beauty, puir fallow!”
The young lady bowed without comprehending a syllable of the
speech of the worthy host.
“Are you likely to be soon ordered abroad?” she said.
 “We expect the route for Spain every day; and then huzza for a
peerage or Westminster Abbey!”
“Ah! war is a fine game when it is played at a distance. Why can’t
kings settle their disputes without having recourse to the sword?”
“I really can’t answer your question, but I think it must be out of a
kind regard for the interest of younger brothers. A war is a capital
provision for poor fellows like myself, who were born to no estate but
that excessively large one which the Catechism calls the ‘estate of sin
and misery.’ But come, I see from your face you are very romantic,
and are going to say something sentimental—luckily his Grace is
proposing a removal into the ball-room; may I beg the honour of
your hand?”
“Aha, lad!” cried the laird, who had heard the last sentence; “are ye
at that wark already—asking a leddy’s hand on sic short an
acquaintance? But folk canna do’t ower sune.”
The bustle caused by the secession of those who preferred
Terpsichore to Bacchus, lucidly prevented Miss Mowbray’s hearing
the laird’s observation, and in a few minutes she found herself
entering with heart and soul into the full enjoyment of a country
dance.
Marriages, they say, are made in heaven. Charles Melville devoutly
wished the laird’s efforts might be successful, and that one could be
made on earth. She was indeed, as the laird expressed it, “a bonnie
cratur to look at.” I never could describe a beauty in my life—so the
loveliness of the English heiress must be left to the imagination. At
all events, she was “the bright consummate flower of the whole
wreath” which was then gathered together at Strath Lugas; and even
Lady Clavers said that—
“Miss Mowbray’s very weel put on indeed, for sae young a lassie.
Her hair’s something like our Anne’s—only I think Anne’s has a wee
richer tinge o’ the golden.”
“Preserve us a’!” whispered the laird; “puir Anne’s hair is as red as
a carrot.”
“An’ dinna ye think her voice,” said her ladyship—“dinna ye think
her voice is something like our Jeanie’s—only maybe no sae rich in
the tone?”
 “Feth, ma’am,” answered the laird, “I maun wait till I hear Miss
Mowbray speak the Gaelic, for really the saft sort o’ beautiful English
she speaks gies her a great advantage.”
“As ye say, Mr Kirkton,” continued her ladyship, who, like all great
talkers, never attended to what any one said but herself, “Jeanie has
a great advantage ower her; but she’s weel enough, for a’ that.”
In the meantime the young lady, who was the subject of this
conversation, troubled herself very little as to what Lady Clavers said
or thought on that occasion. I shall not on any account say that she
was in love, for I highly disapprove of such a speedy surrender to
Dan Cupid in the softer sex; but at all events she was highly delighted
with the novelty of the scene, and evidently pleased with her partner.
No scruple of the same kind restrains me from mentioning the state
of Charlie Melville’s heart. He was as deeply in love as ever was the
hero of a romance, and in the pauses of the dance indulged in various
reveries about love and a cottage, and a number of other absurd
notions, which are quite common, I believe, on such occasions. He
never deigned to think on so contemptible an object as a butcher’s
bill, or how inconvenient it would be to maintain a wife and four or
five angels of either sex on ninety pounds a year; but at the same
time, I must do him the justice to state, that, although he was a
Scotsman, the fact of Miss Mowbray’s being an heiress never entered
into his contemplation; and if I may mention my own opinion, I
really believe he would have been better pleased if she had been as
portionless as himself.
But time and tide wear through the roughest day; no wonder, then,
they wore very rapidly through the happiest evening he had ever
spent. The Duke and the more distant visitors had taken their leave;
“the mirth and fun grew fast and furious” among the younger and
better acquainted parties who were left; but, greatly to the
mortification of the young soldier, his partner was called away at the
end of a dance, just when he had been anticipating a delightful tête-
à-tête while the next was forming. With his heart nearly bursting
with admiration and regret, he wrapt her in her cloaks and shawls,
and in silent dejection, with only a warm pressure of the hand, which
he was enchanted to find returned, he handed her into Mrs
Carmichael’s old-fashioned open car, though the night was dark and
stormy,—and after listening to the last sound of the wheels as they
were lost among the snow, he slowly turned, and re-entered the ball-
room.
Their absence, to all appearance, had not been noticed by a single
eye,—a thing at which he, as a lover under such circumstances is
bound to be, was greatly surprised. “Blockheads!” he said, “they
would not see the darkness if the sun were extinguished at midday.”
And he fell into a train of reflections, which, from the expression of
his countenance, did not seem to be of a very exhilarating nature. In
about twenty minutes, however, after his return, he was roused by
the henchman, whom he had spoken of at dinner, who beckoned him
from the hall.
“The bonny cratur!—the bonny cratur!” he began,—“an’ sic a nicht
to gang hame in!—the stars a’ put out, the snaw beginning to drift,
and a spate in the Lugas! Noo, if auld Andrew Strachan, the Leddy
Carmichael’s coachman,—doited auld body, an’ mair than half fou’,—
tries the ford, oh, the lassie, the bonny lassie’ll be lost! an’ I’ll never
hae the heart to spend the crownpiece she slippit into my hand just
afore the dancin’!”
But what more the worthy henchman might have said must remain
a mystery to all succeeding time; for long before he had come to the
episode of the crown, Charles had rushed hatless into the open air,
and dashed forward at the top of his speed to overtake the carriage,
in time to warn them from the ford. But the snow had already formed
itself into enormous wreaths, which, besides impeding his progress,
interfered greatly with his knowledge of the localities; and he
pursued his toilsome way more in despair than hope. He shouted, in
the expectation of his voice being heard, but he heard no reply. He
stooped down to see the track of the wheels, but the snow fell so fast
and drifted at the same time, that it was quite undistinguishable,
even if the darkness had not been so deep. However, onwards he
pressed towards the ford, and shouted louder and louder as he
approached it.
The roaring of the stream, now swollen to a prodigious height,
drowned his cries, and his eyes in vain searched for the object of his
pursuit; far and near he directed his gaze, and felt a transport of joy
at the hope, which their absence presented, that they had gone round
by the bridge and were saved. He was about to return, when he
thought he heard, in a bend in the river, a little way down, a faint
scream above the roaring of the torrent. Quick as lightning he rushed
towards the spot, and hallooed as loud as he could. The shriek was
distinctly repeated, and a great way out in the water he saw some
substance of considerable size. He shouted again, and a voice replied
to him from the river. In an instant he had plunged into the stream,
and though it was rushing with great impetuosity, it was luckily not
so deep as to prevent his wading. And after considerable toil, for the
water was above his breast, he succeeded in reaching the object he
had descried from the bank. It was, indeed, Mrs Carmichael’s car,
and in it he had the inexpressible delight to find the two ladies,
terrified, indeed, but happily in full possession of their presence of
mind.
In a few hurried words, he desired them to trust entirely to him,
and begging the elder lady to remain quiet in the carriage, he lifted
the younger in his arms,—but in the most earnest language she
implored him to save her companion first, as she had such
confidence in herself that she was certain she could remain in the
carriage till he had effected his return. Pressing her to his heart in
admiration of such magnanimity, he laid her gently back, and lifting
Mrs Carmichael from her seat, he pushed desperately for the shore.
The water even in this short time had perceptibly risen, and on
reaching the bank, and depositing his burden in safety, he rushed
once more through the torrent, fearful lest a moment’s delay should
make it impracticable to reach the car. That light equipage was now
shaking from the impetuous attacks of the stream, and at the
moment when the fainting girl was lifted up, a rush of greater force
taking it, now unbalanced by any weight, forced it on its side, and
rolled it off into the great body of the river. It had been carried more
than fifty yards below the ford, without, however, being overturned,
and had luckily become entangled with the trunk of a tree; the horse,
after severe struggles, had been drowned, and his inanimate weight
had helped to delay the progress of the carriage. The coachman was
nowhere to be found. Meanwhile the three, once more upon the land,
pursued their path back to Strath Lugas. Long and toilsome was the
road, but cheered to the young soldier by the happy consciousness
that he had saved his “heart’s idol” from death. Tired, and nearly
worn out with the harassing nature of their journey and of their
feelings, they at length reached the hospitable mansion they had so
lately quitted.
 The music was still sounding, the lights still burning brightly,—but
when old Simon Kirkton saw the party enter his hall, no words can
do justice to the horror of his expression. The ladies were consigned
to the attention of his wife. He himself took especial care of the hero
of the story; and after having heard the whole adventure, when the
soldier, refreshed, and in a suit of the laird’s apparel, was entering
the dancing room, he slapped him on the shoulder, and said—
“Deil a doubt o’t noo. If ye’re no laird o’ the bonny English acres,
and gudeman o’ the bonny English leddy, I’ve nae skill in spaein’,
that’s a’.”
The adventure quickly spread, and people were sent off in all
directions with lights, to discover, if possible, the body of the
unfortunate Andrew Strachan. After searching for a long time, our
friend the henchman thought he heard a voice close beside him, on
the bank. He held down his lantern, and, sure enough, there he saw
the object of their pursuit, lying at the very edge of the water, and his
body on the land! The water from time to time burst over his face,
and it was only on these occasions that an almost inarticulate grunt
showed that the comatose disciple of John Barleycorn was yet alive.
The henchman summoned his companions, and on attentively
listening to the groans, as they considered them, of the dying man,
they distinctly heard him, as he attempted to spit out the water
which broke in tiny waves over his mouth, exclaiming, “Faugh,
faugh! I doot ye’re changing the liquor—a wee drap mair whisky, and
a sma’ spoonfu’ o’ sugar.” The nodding charioteer had been ejected
from his seat on the first impetus of the “spate,” and been safely
floated to land, without perceiving any remarkable change of
situation. It is needless to say he was considerably surprised to
discover where he was on being roused by the henchman’s party.
“It’s my belief,” said Jock Stewart, the piper, “the drucken body
thocht he was tipplin’ a’ the time in the butler’s ha’! It wad be a gude
deed to let the daidlin’ haveril follow his hat and wig; and I’m
thinkin’ by this time they’ll be down about Fort-George.”
The weather was become so stormy, and the snow so deep, that it
was impossible for any one to leave the house that night. The
hospitable laird immediately set about making accommodation for
so large a party, and by a little management he contrived to render
everybody comfortable. The fiddlers were lodged in the barn, the
ladies settled by the half-dozen in a room, and a supply of cloaks was
collected for the gentlemen in the hall. Where people are willing to
be pleased, it is astonishing how easy they find it. Laughter long and
loud resounded through all the apartments, and morn began to stand
“upon the misty mountain-tops” ere sleep and silence took
possession of the mansion. Next day the storm still continued. The
prospect, as far as the eye could reach, was a dreary waste of snow;
and it was soon perceived, by those who were skilful in such matters,
that the whole party were fairly snowed-up, and how long their
imprisonment might last no one could tell. It was amazing with what
equanimity the intelligence was listened to; one or two young ladies,
who had been particularly pleased with their partners, went as far as
to say it was delightful.
The elders of the party bore it with great good-humour, on being
assured from the state of the larder that there was no danger of a
famine; and, above all, the laird himself, who had some private
schemes of his own to serve, was elevated into the seventh heaven by
the embargo laid on his guests.
“If this bides three days there’ll be a dizzen couple before Leddy-
day. It’s no possible for a lad and a lass to be snawed up thegither
three days without melting;—but we’ll see the night how it’s a’ to be
managed. Has onybody seen Mrs Carmichael and Miss Mowbray this
morning?”
But before this question could be answered the ladies entered the
room. They were both pale from their last night’s adventure; but
while the elder lady was shaking hands with her friends, and
receiving their congratulations, the eyes of her young companion
wandered searchingly round the apartment till they fell on Charles
Melville. Immediately a flush came over her cheek, which before was
deadly pale, and she started forward and held out her hand. He
rushed and caught it, and even in presence of all that company could
scarcely resist the inclination to put it to his lips.
“Thanks! thanks!” was all she said; and even in saying these short
words her voice trembled, and a tear came to her eye. But when she
saw that all looks were fixed on her, she blushed more deeply than
ever, and retired to the side of Mrs Carmichael. The scene passed by
no means unheeded by the laird.
 “Stupid whelp!” he said, “what for did he no kiss her, an it were
just to gie her cheeks an excuse for growing sae rosy? ’Od, if I had
saved her frae drooning, I wadna hae been sae nice,—that’s to say,
my dear,” he added to his wife, who was standing by, “if I hadna a
wife o’ my ain.”
The storm lasted for five days. How the plans of the laird with
regard to the matrimonial comforts of his guests prospered, I have
no intention of detailing. I believe, however, he was right in his
predictions, and the minister was presented with eight several sets of
tea-things within three months. Many a spinster at this moment
looks back with regret to her absence from the snow-party of Strath
Lugas, and dates all her misfortunes from that unhappy
circumstance. On the fourth morning of their imprisonment the laird
was presented with a letter from Charles Melville. In it he informed
him that he dared not be absent longer, in case of his regiment being
ordered abroad, and that he had taken his chance and set off on his
homeward way in spite of the snow. It ended with thanks for all his
kindness, and an affectionate farewell. When this was announced to
the party they expressed great regret at his absence. It seemed to
surprise them all. Mrs Carmichael was full of wonder on the
occasion; but Miss Mowbray seemed totally unmoved by his
departure. She was duller in spirits than before, and refused to
dance; but in other respects the mirth was as uproarious, and the
dancing as joyous, as ever;—and in a day the snow was sufficiently
cleared away—the party by different conveyances broke up—and the
laird was left alone, after a week of constant enjoyment.

Four years after the events I have related, a young man presented
himself for the first time in the pump-room at Bath. The gossips of
that busy city formed many conjectures as to who and what he could
be. Some thought him a foreigner, some a man of consequence
incog.; but all agreed that he was a soldier and an invalid. He seemed
to be about six-and-twenty, and was evidently a perfect stranger.
After he had stayed in the room a short time, and listened to the
music, he went out into the street, and just as he made his exit by one
door, the marvels of the old beldames who congregated under the
orchestra were called into activity by the entrance, through the other,
of a young lady leaning on the arm of an old one. Even so simple an
incident as this is sufficient in a place like Bath to give rise to various
rumours and conjectures. She was tall, fair, and very beautiful, but
she also seemed in bad health, and to be perfectly unknown. Such an
event had not occurred at the pump-room for ages before. Even the
master of the ceremonies was at fault. “As near as he could guess, to
the best of his conjecture, he believed he had never seen either the
gentleman or the lady.”
While surmises of all kinds were going their rounds in this
manner, the gentleman pursued his walk up Milsom Street. His pace
was slow, and his strength did not seem equal even to so gentle an
exertion. He leant for support upon his walking-stick, and heard,
mingled with many coughs, a voice which he well knew, calling,—
“Chairlie—Chairlie Melville, I say! pull, ye deil’s buckie,—ugh—
ugh!—sic a confounded conveyance for a Highland gentleman. Ah,
Chairlie, lad,” said our old acquaintance the laird, who had now got
up to where his friend was standing, “sad times for baith of us. Here
am I sent here wi’ a cough that wad shake a kirk, ugh—ugh.—An’ the
gout in baith my feet,—to be hurled about in a chair that gangs upon
wheels,—ugh—ugh,—by a lazy English vagabond that winna
understand a word that I say till him.—An’ you,” and here the old
man looked up in the young soldier’s face—“Oh, Chairlie, Chairlie! is
this what the wars hae brocht ye to?—ugh—ugh—yer verra mither
wadna ken ye,—but come awa,—come awa to my lodgings in Pultney
Street, and tell us a’ about what ye’ve been doin’,—ugh—ugh,—my fit,
my fit,—pu’ awa’, ye ne’er-do-weel; turn about, and be hanged till ye,
—do ye no ken the road to Pultney Street yet? Come awa, Chairlie,
my man, dinna hurry.” And thus mingling his commands to his
chairman, with complaints of the gout to his friend, the laird led the
way to his lodgings.
Charlie’s story was soon told. He had shared in all the dangers and
triumphs of the last three years of the war. He had been severely
wounded at Waterloo, and had come to Bath with a debilitated frame
and a major’s commission. But though he spoke of past transactions
as gaily as he could, the quick eyes of the laird perceived there was
some “secret sorrow” which weighed down his spirits.
“An’ did ye meet with nae love adventure in your travels? For ye
maunna tell me a bit wound in the shouther would mak ye sae doun-
hearted as ye are. Is there nae Spanish or French lassie that gies ye a
sair heart? Tell it a’ to me, an’ if I can be of ony use in bringin’ it
about, ye may depend I’ll do all in my power to help ye.”
“No,” replied Charles, smiling at the continued match-making
propensities of his friend; “I shall scarcely require your services on
that score. I never saw Frenchwoman or Spaniard that cost me a
single sigh.” And here, as if by the force of the word itself, the young
man sighed.
“Weel, it must be some English or Scotch lassie then; for it’s easy
to be seen that somebody costs ye a sigh. I ance thocht you were in a
fair way o’ winnin’ yon bonny cratur ye saved frae the spate o’ the
Lugas; but ye gaed awa in such a hurry the plant hadna time to tak
root.”
“She was too rich for the poor penniless subaltern to look to,”
replied the young man, a deep glow coming over his face.
“Havers! havers! She wad hae given a’ her lands yon night for a
foot o’ dry grund. An’ as ye won her, ye had the best right to wear
her. And I’m muckle mista’en if the lassie didna think sae hersel.”
“Miss Mowbray must have overrated my services; but at all events
I had no right to take advantage of that fortunate accident to better
my fortunes, by presuming on her feelings of gratitude to her
preserver.”
“What for no? what for no?” cried the laird; “ye should hae
married her on the spot. There were eight couples sprang frae the
snaw-meeting—ye should hae made the ninth, and then ye needna
hae had a ball put through your shouther, nor ever moved frae the
braw holmes o’ Surrey. ’Od, I wish it had been me that took her out o’
the water; that is, if I had been as young as you, and Providence had
afflicted me with the loss o’ Mrs Kirkton.”
“If I had been on a level with her as to fortune”——
“Weel, but noo yer brither’s dead, ye’re heir o’ the auld house, an’
ye’re a major—what’s to forbid the banns noo?”
“I have never heard of Miss Mowbray from that hour to this. In all
probability she is married to some lucky fellow”——
“She wasna married when I saw Mrs Carmichael four months
since; she was in what leddies call delicate health though; she had
aye been melancholy since the time of the water business. Mrs
Carmichael thought ye were a great fule for rinnin’ awa.”
 “Mrs Carmichael is very kind.”
“’Deed is she,” replied the laird, “as kind-hearted a woman as ever
lived. She’s maybe a thocht ower auld, or I dinna doubt she wad be
very happy to marry you hersel.”
“I hope her gratitude would not carry her to such an alarming
length,” said Charles, laughing. “It would make young men rather
tender of saving ladies’ lives.”
“If I knew where she was just now, I wad soon put everything to
rights. It’s no ower late yet, though ye maun get fatter before the
marriage—ye wad be mair like a skeleton than a bridegroom. But,
save us! what’s the matter wi’ ye? are ye no weel? headache? gout?
what is’t, man? Confound my legs, I canna stir. Sit down, and rest
ye.”
But Charles, with his eyes intently fixed on some object in the
street, gazed as if some horrible apparition had met his sight.
Alternately flushed and pale, he continued as if entranced, and then,
deeply sighing, sunk senseless on the floor.
“Rory, Rory!” screamed the laird—“ugh, ugh! oh, that I could get at
the bell! Cheer up, Chairlie. Fire! fire! ugh, ugh!—the lad will be dead
before a soul comes near him. Rory, Rory!”
And luckily the ancient henchman, Rory MacTaggart, made his
appearance in time to save his master from choking through fear and
surprise. Charlie was soon recovered, and, when left again alone with
the laird, he said—
“As I hope to live, I saw her from this very window, just as we were
speaking of her. Even her face I saw! Oh, so changed and pale! But
her walk—no two can have such a graceful carriage!”
“Seen wha?” said the laird. “Mrs Carmichael? For it was her we
were speaking o’—ay, she’s sair changed; and her walk is weel kent;
only I thocht she was a wee stiffer frae the rheumatism last year. But
whaur is she?”
“It was Miss Mowbray I saw. She went into that house opposite.”
“What! the house wi’ the brass knocker, green door—the verandah
with the flower-pots, an’ twa dead geraniums?”
“Yes.”
 “Then just ring the bell, and tell that English cratur to pu’ me in
the wee whirligig across the street.”
“Impossible, my dear laird! recollect your gout.”
“Deil hae the gout and the cough too! Order the chair; I’ll see if it’s
her in five minutes.”
And away, in spite of all objections and remonstrances, went the
laird to pay his visit. Now, if any one should doubt of the success of
his negotiations, I—the writer of this story—Charles Melville, late
major, —th regiment, shall be happy to convince him of it, if he will
drop in on me any day at Mowbray Hall, by my own evidence, and
also that of my happy and still beautiful Madeline, though she is the
mother of three rosy children, who at this moment are making such
an intolerable noise that I cannot understand a sentence I am
writing. I may just mention, that the laird attended the wedding, and
that his cough entirely left him. He does not suffer an attack of the
gout more than once a year. He has adopted my second boy, and
every autumn we spend three months with him at Strath Lugas. Oh,
that all match-makers were as innocent and disinterested as jolly old
Simon Kirkton!—Blackwood’s Magazine.
 EZRA PEDEN.

By Allan Cunningham.

I sat and watched while all men slept, and lo!

Between the green earth and the deep green sea
I saw bright spirits pass, pure as the touch
Of May’s first finger on the eastern hill.
Behind them followed fast a little cloud;
And from the cloud an evil spirit came—
A damnèd shape—one who in the dark pit
Held sovereign sway; and power to him was given
To chase the blessèd spirits from the earth,
And rule it for a season.
Soon he shed
His hellish slough, and many a subtle wile
Was his to seem a heavenly spirit to man.
First he a hermit, sore subdued in flesh,
O’er a cold cruse of water and a crust,
Poured out meek prayers abundant. Then he changed
Into a maid when she first dreams of man,
And from beneath two silken eyelids sent
The sidelong light of two such wondrous eyes,
That all the saints grew sinners. He subdued
Those wanton smiles, and grew a reverend dame,
With wintry ringlets, and grave lips, which dropt
Proverbial honey in her grandson’s ear.
Then a professor of God’s Word he seemed,
And o’er a multitude of upturned eyes
Showered blessed dews, and made the pitchy path,
Down which howl damnèd spirits, seem the bright
Thrice-hallowed way to heaven. Yet grimly through
The glorious veil of those seducing shapes
Frowned out the fearful spirit.
 Chapter I.
The religious legend which supplies my story with the motto,
affords me no further assistance in arranging and interpreting the
various traditional remembrances of the colloquies between one of
the chiefs of the ancient Presbyterian Kirk and one of the inferior
spirits of darkness. It is seldom that tradition requires any
illustration; its voice is clear, and its language simple. It seeks to
conceal nothing; what it can explain it explains, and scorns, in the
homely accuracy of its protracted details, all mystery and
reservation. But in the present story, there is much which the
popular spirit of research would dread to have revealed;—a
something too mystical and hallowed to be sought into by a devout
people. Often as I have listened to it, I never heard it repeated
without mutual awe in the teller and the auditor. The most intrepid
peasant becomes graver and graver as he proceeds, stops before the
natural termination of the story, and hesitates to pry into the
supernatural darkness of the tradition. It would be unwise, therefore,
to seek to expound or embellish the legend,—it shall be told as it was
told to me; I am but as a humble priest responding from the
traditionary oracles, and the words of other years pass without
change from between my lips.
Ezra Peden was one of the shepherds of the early Presbyterian
flock, and distinguished himself as an austere and enthusiastic
pastor; fearless in his ministration, delighting in wholesome
discipline, and guiding in the way of grace the peer as well as the
peasant. He grappled boldly with the infirmities and sins of the
times; he spared not the rod in the way of his ministry; and if in the
time of peril he laid his hand on the sword, in the time of peace his
delight was to place it on the horns of the altar. He spared no vice, he
compounded with no sin, and he discussed men’s claims to immortal
happiness with a freedom which made them tremble. Amid the
fervour of his eloquence, he aspired, like some of his fellow-
professors of that period, to the prophetic mantle. Plain and simple
in his own apparel, he counted the mitred glory and exterior
magnificence of the hierarchy a sin and an abomination, and
preferred preaching on a wild hill, or in a lonesome glen, to the most
splendid edifice.