My only additional comment here is that Amazon rejected my review (below) because it contains the word ‘asshole’. This is political correctness gone crazy. They asked me to delete the word or perhaps change it to something like ‘A******’ but I refused. Considering that the title of the book appears at the top of every review I cannot comprehend how Amazon algorithms would permit the publication of any review of this book. Be that as it may, I am not politically correct and I publish my review of this excellent book here on the blog for your edification.

Assholes, A Theory

Bravo for a brilliant book. Dr. James takes what appears at first to be a trivial notion, “the asshole” as a metaphor for a particular sort of human
behavior and uses it to illustrate how philosophy is done, what it must consider, and the directions in which it can be applied.

He begins by defining the term and then comparing it to other “terms of derision” like ‘jerk’ exploring various examples both hypothetical and drawn from the headlines so that after the first few chapters we are comfortable understanding what an asshole is as compared to other kinds of behavior worthy of opprobrium. Following this set up he moves on to social philosophy; why this behavior exists, how it comes about, various possibilities concerning its root cause (or causes) and why most (but not all) assholes are men. He next discusses what people who are not assholes can do about those who are, both on the individual level and in small or large social systems. In the closing chapters he moves further into the realm of the political and economic. He argues for a refreshing view of what might be called “the problems of capitalism”. Far from the Marxist idea that capitalism is inherently and necessarily unstable, James argues that modern (State regulated) capitalism can be perfectly stable and what makes it unstable are the presence of, you guessed it, assholes, whose behavior distorts the system rendering it less and less stable over time.

Does James make his case here for this final claim? I think he does, and it puts a nice capstone on an all around excellent book in the philosophical arena of ethics. An easy read. If you are looking for an example of good philosophical technique applied to a trivial notion that turns out to have world shattering consequences, this would be a good read.