Scholars are grateful to Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989) and Herbert Aptheker (1915-2003) for their pioneering work in the field of slave revolts. What they've virtually never mentioned, however, let alone explored, was Aptheker’s practice of rendering James invisible. It is highly improbable that Aptheker did not know either of James or of his noteworthy study of the Haitian Revolution, given that the latter was related to the slave revolts that Aptheker did study. Aptheker’s neglect of James was not an (...) anomaly, but rather symptomatic of an ideology that rationalized extreme oppression. (shrink)

Moody-Adams has written an in-depth and comprehensive book that scrutinizes relativists’ claims of the reality of “rationally irresolvable moral disagreement”. Tight arguments are offered challenging the misconceptions about morality, culture, and other anthropological issues that are employed to demonstrate the validity of moral relativism. Furthermore, there is an original reconception of the tasks of moral philosophy with an emphasis on the nature of moral inquiry.

Gert offers a comprehensive and sophisticated account of the nature of morality and a strong justification of it. The starting point of the account is an analysis and clarification of what precisely a theory of morality includes and what it ought not to include. After these considerations, key concepts, which are presupposed and in part defined by moral theory, such as rationality, impartiality, goods, and evils, are decisively described and defined. Next, justifications for the moral theory espoused by Gert are (...) posed and defended. Throughout this, key moral concepts are analyzed, and his moral theory and its role in society and societal institutions, such as government, is examined. (shrink)