The Quest for a Moral Compass: A global history of ethics

Kenan Malik
Atlantic Books, 390pp

This book is muddled from the start – in fact, from the title. ‘Moral compass’ originated as a synonym for conscience; it was used by Christians to refer to a God-given moral sense. It is used today in a slightly different way, to mean the moral values that one opts to steer by – it became current after Gordon Brown referred to certain values as his moral compass. It is therefore a muddled phrase, hovering between ‘conscience’ and ‘the values …