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A POSITIVE PARADIGM FOR REBELLION Louis Groarke: The Good Rebel: Understanding Freedom and Morality. (Madison: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002. Pp. 326. $49.50.)
Rebellion is a subject that is not commonly written about in the philosophical literature because of its negative connotations. Groarke dispels this negative view of rebellion by arguing that the "good (moral) rebel" is an individual who transcends an oppressive, stifling system or society for the sake of a higher good. This idea is an important contribution to the literature since usually rebels are known as individuals who act immorally in order to make some outrageous point. Groarke changes the paradigm of rebellion by arguing that only "good rebellion" is genuine rebellion. To rebel is to reflect critically on the current practices within society and to evaluate them. As Groarke writes, "Good rebels supply us with a paradigmatic example of heroic human achievement" (p. 13). Thus, good rebellion is a moral achievement, perhaps one of the highest achievements to which human beings can aspire.
There are three parts to Groarke's argument for good rebellion. First, Groarke argues that the good rebel must be a rational agent. Groarke advocates a pragmatic model of rationality which may be characterized as a consistency that satisfies an objective criterion. According to the pragmatist model, the ultimate criterion for reality involves the everyday lives of individuals. Ideally, moral beliefs should guide an agent's actions since moral truths are objective and true regardless of what we think of them. They judge the rationality of an agent's actions and provide objective standards of behavior. Thus, morality should be experienced as an objective constraint on reality, making our relationship to the world moral in nature.
Thus, for Groarke, rationality, autonomy, and morality are necessarily connected. In order to be a good rebel, an agent must act rationally and do...