From Job to the Enlightenment - John Cottingham

A new book by Susan Neiman revisits the role of the transcendental in two ‘moral heavyweights’ of the Enlightenment, Kant and Hume, and explores how today’s political left can pursue a progressivist vision of justice and equality that goes beyond ‘crass materialism’. Her interpretation of the Biblical story of Job holds that the undeserved and terrible suffering we see in the world around us shows there is no moral order in the world and that we are to create it ourselves. In this she upholds Hume's idea that there are no ‘oughts’ to be derived from what ‘is’. John Cottingham finds much to commend in this departure from ‘contemporary militant secularism’, but questions the lasting basis of a ‘hope’ that does not acknowledge the ultimate goodness at the source of everything. Rather, he points to Kant’s assertion that hope in the ultimate triumph of goodness makes believing in God a moral necessity.

© Standpoint Magazine (London)