Ethique à l'usage de mon fils - Fernando Savater

Another CEGEP read from my flat-mate's bookshelf... the next book to be review is a quite rough read, so I had to read something lighter. While I didn't learn much from this book, I'm still glad I got my hands on it.

As it's title implies, this book is a treaty on ethics, from a father to his son. This implies many things: first and foremost, the tone is quite different from other works of philosophy, as you'd expect. First off, it's terribly cheesy: maybe it's the fact that this book was written in the 90's, or the way is was translated, but some passages are totally cringe-worthy. We've all been through "serious" talks with out parents: were babies come from, why you shouldn't smoke, money and how to spend it; that kind of awkward. Secondly, examples are abundant, and more often than not are very personal: Savater Jr. probably was really big into motorcycles, because that definitely came up a lot. Thirdly, the book cites occasionally, but generally refrains from laying down statements as if they were facts. As a descendant to existentialism with regards to the notion of freedom that the book exposes, Savater presents his content more as guidelines and pointers rather than rules, being obviously sensible to giving his progeny a free mind, one that through reason and experience  can come to it's own truth, and forge it's own ideas.

This is the first work on ethics that I have read cover to cover, having only read bits and pieces of Aristotle, Epicurus and the likes. Because of it's intent, I don't feel like I have learnt too much; the flipside of the expository nature of this book is that the basics are brought back, important things like the different between ethics and moral, their place in the wider spectrum of philosophy and the implications of elaborating one's ethical code. In both form and content, it is an excellent primer the philosophy of our time, with it's implied agnosticism and tendency towards concepts relating to secular humanism; the perfect book to spark interest in philosophy in the heart of a young adult.

Really hoping I can steal this book off my buddy. I'm of the opinion that a general grasp of philosophy is essential for any cultured individual, and I'd love to give this to my own son some day.