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lem of all books on foundations of ethics is, that thewider the theme, the more superficial it must be in thepractical questions of applied ethics (here: chapter 8–10, 56 pages). Nevertheless, Warren’s book presentsa successful combination of overall view and profun-dity. Moreover, Warren’s style is clear and fresh, whichmakes the book very readable and therefore not only agood work for philosophers and bioethicists, but alsoan introduction into this complex field for studentsand researchers of the social sciences. The enclosedbibliography is very helpful despite comprising littlein the way of European literature, an understandablesituation in itself as it would be impossible for a singleperson to know the increasing number of internationalworks on this subject. Lastly: the book is aestheticallypresented, bound in hardback with a graphically inter-esting and visually provocative jacket illustration. Thedesign features at its centre a photograph: an upperbody shot of a man and a monkey positioned back toback and almost identical in height, as if poised fora duel. Yet a more appropriate observation and onewhich can indeed serve as a suitable metaphor for thisbook is that they are engaged not in conflict, but in amore considered and deeper reflection of their moralstatus as living beings.

Andreas FrewerGermany

Barlösius, E.: 1997,Naturgemässe Lebensführung –Zur Geschichte der Lebensreform um die Jahrhundert-wende. Frankfurt, Campus Verlag. 299 pages. ISBN:3-593-35759-3. Price: DM 78.00

Eva Barlösius, a sociologist, had devoted herHabil-itationsschrift to a sociological study of the Germanvegetarian movement at the end of the 19th century.The author formulates the starting point for heranalysis as follows: “From a sociological point ofview, the question arises why [. . . ] the claim for anascetic way of life gained such an impact [at the time]”(p. 20). She rejects an answer to this question onlyin terms of the attractiveness of ideas and insteadpromises an analysis of the social structural character-istics of he movement and their relation to the socialrepresentations and norms formulated.

The book has been divided into seven chapters. Inthe introductory chapter the author attempts to reviewthe literature both on theLebensreform-movement asa whole, and on the vegetarian movement. From theoutset, Barlösius stresses that in the 19th century,vegetarianism did not only imply the renunciation of

eating meat, but also encompassed a particular way oflife which propagated self-restraint in order to protector restore physical and psychological integrity and inthe end to form one’s own ‘personality’, a central valueof bourgeois culture. Barlösius claims that most of thehistorical literature on the topic focuses on what shecalls the ‘cultural’ level of the movement but ignoresto systematically look into the social status and mate-rial interests of the historical actors. This analyticaldichotomy of an insufficient ‘cultural analysis’, exam-ining only ideas, and a ‘sociological analysis’ whichinvestigates the social structure and material interestsinvolved, is constitutive for the author’s approach. It isnot further reflected upon, but its choice is decisive forthe strengths and weaknesses of the book.

The second chapter reconstructs the biographies ofthe ‘prophets’ (Max Weber), i.e., the initiators andleaders of the vegetarian movement, such as EduardBaltzer (1814–1887), Gustav von Struve (1805–1870),and Theodor Hahn (1824–1882). This reconstructionis based on the publications of the ‘prophets’, andin particular on autobiographical accounts or sketcheswhich are contrasted to the features and norms ofconventional bourgeois biographies. According toBarlösius’s findings, the protagonists followed a ratherdiscontinuous course in life, with changing vocationaland group affiliations and frequent financial problems.All of them turned to vegetarianism only late in theirlife, and retrospectively described this turn in termsof a religious conversion. The author suggests that theprotagonists used the ascetic way of life and the asso-ciated explanations and norms to confer stringency andmeaning to their past biography.

The third chapter (which encompasses almost aquarter of the book) focuses on the followers of thevegetarian ‘prophets’: Barlösius undertakes a statis-tical analysis of the social structural characteristicsof this group based on the directories and publishedstatistics of one of its central institutions, theVereinfür naturgemässe Lebensweise, founded in 1868. Theresults show that vegetarianism was a phenomenonof urban centres, mainly in northern Germany andSaxony with a clear majority of protestants in thegeneral population. The data available further suggestthat the followers joined the movement fairly early intheir life (between the age of 20 and 35), and thatmost of them were active supporters or members onlyfor a few years. They tended to being to the ‘newurban middle classes’, i.e., to those groups who mainlyworked in he public sphere, and in fields that hadgained their life cycle, rather than one related to thegeneration as a whole (p. 166). From this, the authorconcludes that the engagement of the followers was notdue to specific developments in contemporary culture(such as the appeal of popularized antimodernistic

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philosophies linked to seemingly scientific explana-tions of the use of a ‘natural’ way of life), but tofeatures of the social groups concerned, in particularthe need to stabilize their social status as members ofthe bourgeoisie. The following two chapters, dealingwith the institutionalisation of the movement, and thecore features of its ideology, are devoted to support thiscentral argument.

The formulation of the presumedly alternativeexplanations for the success of the movement (theappeal and compatibility of ideas, vs. the impactsocial and material interests) is a consequence of theanalytical approach adopted by the author. Her narrowunderstanding of the category ‘culture’, itself relyingon a specific German tradition of the term which foundits epitome in the over of Weber, leads her to postulatean antithesis between a ‘cultural’ and a ‘social’ expla-nation of the phenomenon she wants to explore. Morerecent approaches in the field of historical and culturalstudies, inspired in particular by developments incultural anthropology, employ a much broader notionof ‘culture’ which enables an analysis of the shiftinginterests, alliances, behaviour patterns and rationalisa-tions/justifications of individuals and groups in variouslocal settings that finally merge into a general pictureof phenomena such as social movements. However,in spite of this analytical drawback with its bearingson the formulation of questions and the consecutiveinterpretations, Barlösius has added valuable empiricalfindings and stimulating insights into the history of thevegetarian movement.

The last two chapters explore the relationship ofvegetarianism with the broader movement ofLebens-reform (‘life reform’) and related ideas and organisa-tions around the turn of the century. This part of thebook – interesting in its intentions – relies heavily onthe interpretations of the empirical findings lined outbefore, and on a fairly incomplete survey of the histor-ical research on cultural critique, antimodernism, andlife reform. Not included are for instance the results ofthe relevant general studies by Wolfgang Mommsen,or the more focused contributions of Cornelia Reginand Gunnar Stollberg on naturopathy. Unfortunately,the results of the study are also not related to theongoing discussions on analogous social movementsin other European countries, or the United States.Thus, a comparative study of heterodox and – in part– antimodernist health movements in the context ofEuropean culture at the turn of the century remains arewarding challenge.

Volker RoelckeGermany

Minogue, B.P., Palmer-Fernández, G. & Reagan,J.E. (eds.): 1997,Reading Engelhardt; Essays on theThought of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.Dordrecht,Kluwer Academic Publishers. 312 pages. ISBN:0-7923-4572-X. Price: NLG 180.00

The emergence and expansion of bioethics may betaken as an emblematic figure of a swiftness of ourepoch. It has taken no more than a quarter of a centuryin which we have witnessed the birth, rise, and fulldevelopment of a new, powerful domain of intellectualinquiries. Not only has it demarked its proper fieldof scientific exploration and reached its own pecu-liar methods of proceeding, but it has also createdits own great masters. If any ability to establish socalled ‘classics’ is a sign of maturity of a certain disci-pline, bioethics has reached its maturity very quickly.A new Kluwer series entitledFounding Fathers ofModern Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine, whichwas inaugurated with the books devoted to the thoughtof E. Pellegrino and T. H. Engelhardt, may be seen asa proof of bioethics’ intellectual grow-up.

Engelhardtian thought is read by fourteen authorsmainly through his two books:The Foundations ofBioethics (in its two highly different editions) andBioethics and Secular Humanism: The Search for aCommon Morality. Central features of his approachto bioethics undergo a respectful, yet fastidious andcritical examination, in the course of which allegedintellectual shortcomings and moral quandaries of thetheory at stake are found and posed against, and differ-ent suggestions of how to evade these difficulties areput forward.

The main stream of this criticism is directedonto Engelhardt’s understanding of the principles ofbioethics (with the principle of permission at thefirst place) and his libertarian approach to ethicsand society. James Nelson finds mutual agreementof moral strangers stemming from the principle ofpermission not strict enough in what it allows moralagents to do and, at the same time, too restrictive inwhat it prohibits the society from regulating. Thus,permission is for him equally arbitrary to other formsof power exerted on others, which Engelhardt criti-cises. Therefore it cannot be a proper ground for themorality adequate to the challenges of our times. WadeRobinson doubts whether the principle of permis-sion would be taken as basic for morality, perceiv-ing it as merely contingent and relative amidst otherprinciples morality can be founded on. Consideringfundamental inequalities among people, Rory Weineradvocates strongly for supplementing permission withcooperative beneficence because of insufficiency ofthe principle of permission as an exclusive groundfor secular bioethics. Faith Lagay blames Engelhardt’s