Felix Kaufmann, “Review: A. E. Murphy, The Uses of Reason” (1944)

Felix Kaufmann’s journal book review presents Arthur E. Murphy’s The Uses of Reason as a defense of rational moral judgment against both ethical skepticism and appeals to principles beyond human experience. Its organizing question is whether knowledge of moral values is possible. Kaufmann endorses Murphy’s democratic and broadly pragmatic answer, while questioning whether the book supplies the logical analysis necessary to make that answer convincing to its opponents. The review proceeds from an account of Murphy’s philosophical position and the book’s structure to a focused criticism of its treatment of social ideals, before concluding with an affirmative assessment of its educational importance.

Murphy’s central move is to reject the supposed choice between relativism and a theological or metaphysical foundation for ethics. Kaufmann states the positive ambition clearly:

He insists that a genuine moral philosophy yielding criteria for a rational discrimination between good and bad, just and unjust, can be established without any appeal to "ultimates," that is, to theological or metaphysical principles.

Reason is therefore neither an instrument subordinate to arbitrary preferences nor a faculty whose authority depends on inaccessible foundations. Murphy directs his criticism against dogmatism and skepticism alike, engaging contemporary philosophers, scientists, and theologians concerned with the social and political consequences of the age’s intellectual climate. Kaufmann treats this engagement as part of the book’s practical purpose: explaining how rational judgment can remain authoritative amid competing diagnoses of modern society.

The introduction, “The Foundations of Rational Belief,” places Murphy close to Dewey’s theory of valuation. Both reject simple oppositions between intellect and feeling, means and ends, and reason and experience; both seek criteria for intelligent social action. Yet Murphy criticizes leading pragmatists for failing to repudiate unequivocally the interpretation that equates truth with usefulness. This qualification matters because a defense of practical reason must distinguish warranted judgment from whatever happens to serve an interest.

Kaufmann follows the book’s four-part movement through “Reason and Truth,” “Practical Reason,” “Reason and Social Action,” and “The Philosophic Use of Reason.” Moral and political controversies lead back to epistemology, especially the nature of truth. Although Murphy does not investigate these foundations exhaustively in a book intended for a wide readership, Kaufmann finds the opening treatment sufficiently considered to support the subsequent argument. In ethics, Murphy’s emphasis on Kantian freedom and dignity challenges primitive utilitarian accounts: the good requires a morally ordered relationship among satisfactions, not simply the gratification of competing drives. The worth of satisfaction cannot be separated from the worth of the person satisfied.

The review’s critical center is the chapter on the disrepute of rational ideals. Kaufmann identifies its challenge to Pareto and his followers as especially important:

It attempts to refute the thesis, advanced, among others, by Pareto and his followers, that social science must be value-free and that social ideals can be unmasked as ideologies.

Kaufmann notes that Weber’s more guarded formulation is absent. More fundamentally, he argues that Murphy needs a thorough logical analysis of value judgments. Defining justice through the harmony of enlightened interests may guide ethical inquiry, but does not yet answer the objection that “harmony” and “enlightened interests” disguise individual or group preferences. Kaufmann takes this objection seriously without accepting it as decisive:

I do not regard this stricture as the last word in such a discussion, but it has to be taken seriously, and, as far as I can determine, it has not been faced by Professor Murphy.

The reservation distinguishes Kaufmann’s agreement with Murphy’s outlook from acceptance of its full argumentative justification. Nevertheless, his final judgment is strongly favorable. The book’s reasonableness, lucid writing, and defense of democratic ideals make it a valuable contribution to philosophical education for democracy. The review’s enduring conceptual tension lies between that practical achievement and the unresolved demand to explain how moral judgments can claim rational validity rather than merely express preferences.