Book Description

A trip through someone else's mind would not be a pleasant journey. Even if you did not stumble across anything truly abhorrent, you could hardly avoid a good deal of ugly thoughts - hostile attitudes towards friends, negative stereotypes of groups, plenty of contempt, and a whole host ofshocking fantasies. But what is our moral relationship to our ideas? Are we justified in morally condemning ugly thoughts? In A Wild West of the Mind, George Sher argues for the provocative thesis that the realm of the purely mental is a "morality-free zone." Within that realm, no thoughts orattitudes are forbidden or required. Morality properly constrains our actions in a world full of others, but in a sense, our thoughts are off-limits-each person's individual subjectivity is boundless.Sher begins by arguing against a reigning assumption in much of moral philosophy that morality has a bearing not only on how we act, but also on what we think and feel. On Sher's view, we cannot subject private thoughts to moral evaluation or constraint precisely because they are confined to themental sphere. Actions are morally condemnable when they do harm to others; by definition, though it may motivate a harmful action, a thought in itself cannot do harm. This does not mean, of course, that our mental states are not subject to any evaluations whatsoever. Our beliefs can be irrationaland our desires can be vicious, reflecting badly on our character, but we cannot say they are "wrong" or impermissible as such. From here, Sher presents a positive defense of "free thought," one that posits that constraining our mental lives with moral proscriptions poses a severe threat to ourmental freedom, one that can significantly impoverish our lives. Broad in scope and tightly argued, this book will have much to offer philosophers working in ethics, free will, and epistemology.