Moral Philosophy

Robin Attfield introduces environmental ethics, exploring the values involved in issues, such as pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. Considering the different groups involved in environmental ethics and the attitudes of the world's religions to environmental stewardship, he calls for action from us all to manage our environment ethically.

In Tending the Heart of Virtue, Vigen Guroian illuminates the power of classic tales and their impact on the moral imagination. He demonstrates how these stories teach the virtues through vivid depictions of the struggle between good and evil, while he also unveils components of the good, the true, and the beautiful in plot and character. With clarity and elegance, Guroian reads deeply into the classic stories.

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) is the first of Immanuel Kant's mature works on moral philosophy and remains one of the most important in the field. Kant examines the core concepts and principles of moral theory, showing that they are normative for rational agents. He aspires to lay bare the fundamental principle of morality and prove that it applies to us. Kant offers the argument that the rightness of an action is determined by the character of the principle that a person chooses to act upon.

A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history.

Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes offers an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness. Based on extensive interviews with managers at every level of two industrial firms and of a large public relations agency, IMoral Mazes takes the reader inside the intricate world of the corporation.

In their collaborative work, Joseph and Breandan Lumpkin seamlessly blend their unique insights with timeless wisdom from Stoics Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. These stoic lessons beckon listeners to return for solace and enlightenment during life's trials. With clarity and precision, this book presents the essence of Stoic philosophy in six modern lessons, guiding listeners to scrutinize their perceptions and choose their responses to adversity with greater mindfulness.

Sprawling and illuminating, Dan Gretton’s I You We Them is an unprecedented study of perpetrators of crimes against humanity: the “desk killers” who ordered and directed some of the worst atrocities of the last century. From Albert Speer’s Nazi complicity to Royal Dutch Shell’s role in the murder of the Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, Gretton probes the depths of the figure “who, by giving orders, uses paper or a phone or a computer to kill, instead of a gun.”

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the most influential philosophers of all time. His profound thoughts on aesthetics, ethics, and knowledge has had an enormous impact on all subsequent philosophy. Kant asked questions like “What is morally permissible, and what is morally obligatory?” and explored the answers in Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant's idea of the categorical imperative is a logical proof of the golden rule and the centerpiece of this work.

What moral values do human beings hold in common? As globalization draws us together economically, are our values converging or diverging? In particular, are human rights becoming a global ethic? These were the questions that led Michael Ignatieff to embark on a three-year, eight-nation journey in search of answers. The Ordinary Virtues presents Ignatieff's discoveries and his interpretation of what globalization - and resistance to it - is doing to our conscience and our moral understanding.

Underlain by an acute sense of ethics, this provided the basis for his strongly declared, wide-ranging views on many subjects: prohibition of cock-fighting, liberty of the press, universal suffrage, the removal of religious tests for office and even hunting. All were radical ideas for his time. He also proposed the decriminalisation of homosexuality, though even he did not dare to publish his essay on this subject during his lifetime. But An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation was his major work.

In The Soul of Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, Kleinman delivers a deeply humane and inspiring story of his life in medicine and his marriage to Joan, and he describes the practical, emotional and moral aspects of caretaking. He also writes about the problems our society faces as medical technology advances and the cost of health care soars but caring for patients no longer seems important.

Immanuel Kant's Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, first published in 1785, lays out Kant's essential philosophy and defines the concepts and arguments that would shape his later work. Central to Kant's doctrine is the categorical imperative, which he defines as a mandate that human actions should always conform to a universal, unchanging standard of rational morality.

In his autobiography, David Hume declared unequivocally that this work, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) is "of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best." In it, Hume takes the discussion away from traditional attitudes where either rational or metaphysical issues govern moral principles. Instead, he introduces the human factor, introducing the sentiments and passions inherent in human psychology.

Alongside a lively tour of traditional moral reasoning from thinkers like Plato, Mill, and Kant, Rieder posits new questions and exercises about the unique conundrums we now face, issues that can seem to transcend old-fashioned philosophical ideals. Should you drink water from a plastic bottle or not? Drive an electric car? When you learn about the horrors of factory farming, should you stop eating meat or other animal products? Do small commitments matter, or are we being manipulated into acting certain ways by corporations and media?

In 2018, scientists manipulated the DNA of human babies for the first time. As biologist and historian Matthew Cobb shows in As Gods, this achievement was one many scientists have feared from the start of the genetic age. Four times in the last fifty years, geneticists, frightened by their own technology, have called a temporary halt to their experiments. They ought to be frightened.

Genealogía de la Moral es una obra provocadora que desentraña los orígenes y significados de nuestros valores éticos. En este texto, Nietzsche cuestiona las bases de la moralidad convencional y desafía al lector a reconsiderar lo que se considera bueno y malo. A través de un análisis de la historia y la psicología, expone cómo los valores morales han evolucionado, influenciados por factores culturales y de poder.

In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone.

In this tour de force essay, Hans-Hermann Hoppe turns the standard account of historical governmental progress on its head. While the state is an evil in all its forms, monarchy is, in many ways, far less pernicious than democracy. Hoppe shows the evolution of government away from aristocracy, through monarchy, and toward the corruption and irresponsibility of democracy to have been identical with the growth of the leviathan state.

The question "What is good and evil?" may seem simple, but as the book shows, it's more complex than you might think. This sort of philosophical thinking, though often reserved for college students, can broaden the thinking of younger children. The works of different philosophers are used to explore this important question in clear, simple language and in terms that children ages 10 and older can understand.

There are times when we've all felt that we haven't been treated as we deserve—that we've been misjudged, shortchanged, or given a raw deal. And, at one time or another, other people have probably felt that we've treated them just as unfairly. How to Do the Right Thing draws on the principles of ancient Stoicism as articulated by the Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca to help listeners better navigate one of the most important practical questions of daily life—how to do right by others.