What Nobody Knows

Abstract

This is a review of "Cunning," by Don Herzog. "Cunning" criticizes as unilluminating a set of dichotomies that are routinely invoked by modern academics to explain human behavior and to describe practical reason, including those between fact and value, reason and desire, and self-interest and morality. The first part of the review attempts to unravel some of the threads of Herzog's elegant and playful argument. The second maintains that law professors, in particular, will both enjoy and profit from the book's engaging, insightful, and unsettling blend of philosophical pragmatism, historically grounded casuistry, and unsentimental humanism.