Moral Matters: A Philosophy of Homecoming

About the Book

Moral Matters: A Philosophy of Homecoming is Mark Dooley's attempt to offer an alternative to 'Cyberia'. It is a book about home, memory and identity. At a time when people are rapidly disengaging from those forms of life which once bound them together, it can be argued that our happiness depends on saving and conserving them. We cannot flourish in isolation or by detaching from the social sphere which surrounds us. We cannot truly prosper or progress if we choose to forget where we came from or if we dismiss our inherited moral wisdom. And yet, in opting for loss, separation and homelessness, it seems we have done just that. We have opted for a rootless existence where alienation and amnesia are the norm. This powerful and passionate book shows how the alienated, 'postmodern' self can become re-rooted to time and place and restored to full humanity and happiness whilst moving in a virtual, hyperconnected world. In caring for creation, conserving culture and saving the sacred we can once again make our home in the world and experience the consolation of moving from loss to love.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: From loss to love
1 Homesickness
2 Playing with our toys
3 Dealing with the dead
4 A work of love
5 Fantasies of freedom
6 The law of the home
7 Caring for creation
8 Conserving culture
9 Saving the sacred
Conclusion: Homecoming

About the Author :
Mark Dooley has held lectureships at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and at University College Dublin. From 2003-2006, he wrote a controversial column on foreign affairs for the Sunday Independent. Since 2006, he has written for the Irish Daily Mail. He is author of The Politics of Exodus: Kierkegaard's Ethics of Responsibility (2001), The Philosophy of Derrida (2007), Roger Scruton: The Philosopher on Dover Beach (2009) and Why Be a Catholic? (2011).

Review :
At the heart of Moral Matters is the idea of home; homebuilding and homecoming are Dooley’s chief motifs. Against the traditional homestead and the pastoral outlook that sustains it Dooley contrast the spiritual wasteland of “Cyberia” and its ethic of instant gratification. Cyberia, the virtual world of video games and “social networking” websites, of fast food and online shopping, is a realm of immediacy and isolation, a place where lasting attachments are shunned in favor of fleeting exchanges and superficial allegiances … Dooley ably disposes of the arguments of a variety of postmodern thinkers … Dooley has the benefit of having written on all of these philosophers from a position sympathetic to their broad postmodernist project, and his responses are not careless denunciations but subtle and penetrating critiques … as a work that unashamedly celebrates traditional values and unflinchingly faces the reality of a world where those values are everywhere imperiled, you will not find better. The forte of Mark Dooley’s book is that it ... speaks to people of all persuasions; it also speaks to people of all creeds and far beyond the shores of Ireland. Asserting that “there are many roads home”, it presents a uniquely non-nostalgic, loving, sacred worldview transcending established barriers and bringing together ... people who would never otherwise have conversed. Dooley accomplishes this feat in his signature pellucid, lively and warmly personal style, making it possible for all readers to take part in this unique philosophical conversation. ... A brilliant new book ... Dooley gently offers profound philosophical meditations on death and loss, and on life and love. This is Irish philosopher Mark Dooley's superb critique of modern day liberalism ... a fascinating and challenging work. Moral Matters is a wonderful compendium of common sense from a highly sophisticated and decidedly modern writer. Mark Dooley writes with passion, conviction and admirable clarity of the dilemmas and temptations that face us, in a world of instant communication and material abundance - the world he calls Cyberia. The result links past and future together in a way that casts a dazzling light on the present. In this clear, well-organized treatise, Dooley (independent scholar) makes a robust attack on secularism, liberalism, postmodernism, and new information technologies. He calls his guiding concept ‘Cyberia,’ defined as a disconnected and atomistic way of life taken up by the West through its use of smartphones and the Internet. Dooley cites many of the problems associated with such technologies: e.g., loss of community, disinterest in genuine friendships, and disconnection from the Earth, the dead, and the unborn. His intellectual influences are broadly on display, as are his intellectual foes. To counter the positions of Caputo, Derrida, Foucault, and Rorty, Dooley draws on Hegel, Burke, and Scruton. The conservative vision he articulates draws not only from his personal lifestyle (as a Catholic) but from his weekly columns (also titled ‘Moral Matters’) for The Irish Daily Mail. Though many will disagree with much in the book, Dooley offers a clear, succinct, and accessible presentation of conservatism in a time when such positions are seen as increasingly irrational and dogmatically blind. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. You don’t have to agree with everything that Mark Dooley says to be instructed by him. Moral Matters is a provocative critique of contemporary life and a bracing warning about what can go wrong in the postmodern world.