Social Ethics

Escrito en 2005 y debatido ampliamente tras la muerte del autor, este discurso es un legado conciso de uno de los grandes pensadores de nuestro tiempo. Transido con su humor único, su intelecto preciso y su filosofía práctica, Esto es agua muestra los retos de la vida diaria y ofrece consejos que nos renuevan con cada lectura.

The preeminent sociologist Richard Sennett traces the anguished relation between how cities are built and how people live in them, from ancient Athens to twenty-first-century Shanghai. He shows how Paris, Barcelona, and New York City assumed their modern forms; rethinks the reputations of Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, and others; and takes us on a tour of emblematic contemporary locations, from the backstreets of Medellin, Colombia, to Google headquarters in Manhattan.

The reduction of suffering deserves special priority. Many ethical views support this claim, yet so far these have not been presented in a single place. Suffering-Focused Ethics provides the most comprehensive presentation of suffering-focused arguments and views to date, including a moral realist case for minimizing extreme suffering. The book then explores the all-important issue of how we can best reduce suffering in practice, and outlines a coherent and pragmatic path forward.

As Erich Fromm points out, ours is "a life between having and being"—between mere having and healthy being, between destructiveness and creativity, between narcissism and productive self-understanding, between passivity and the joy of positive activity. The alternatives of having and being are basic orientations of our character and determine our behavior. The mostly unpublished and unknown texts featured in The Essential Fromm encapsulate the psychologist's views on the fulfilling life.

$uperhubs is a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how the world's most powerful titans, the superhubs, pull the levers of our global financial system. Combining insider's knowledge with principles of network science, Sandra Navidi offers a startling new perspective on how superhubs build their powerful networks and how their decisions impact all our lives. $uperhubs reveals what happens at the exclusive, invitation-only platforms - the World Economic Forum in Davos, the meetings of the International Monetary Fund, think tanks....

The essays in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics have a rather special place in Schopenhauer’s work, both being written as entries to Scandinavian philosophy competitions, one in Norway and one in Sweden.

Eating is about more than satisfying our hunger. It's also about the environment, social justice, personal development, and sustainable living. Many Americans already know this. We're eating less red meat and more organically produced foods, and most restaurants offer vegetarian options. But do we really know the truth about mechanized animal farming and slaughterhouses, herbicide and pesticide use, and labels that promise "Certified Humane"?

God gave Israel the Year of Jubilee as a social reset. Taken together with Sabbath laws and gleaning laws (laws dealt with the harvest season), it was a way to celebrate God's gifts and put the pieces of a broken society back together again. These Old Testament economic ethics were highly practical laws with a theological vision that, if enacted, would set Israel apart as a just society in the midst of a cruel, greedy, and unjust world—not unlike our present day. José Humphreys and Adam Gustine take a close look at the economic ethics and practices of the Old Testament.

For C. S. Lewis, reason and logic are the sensible way to approach faith and ethics. Much of the 20th century's ills are caused by ill-founded beliefs and opinions. Lewis' original approach remains as vital today as ever. He is able to take the most convoluted subject, turn it side on and shed bright illumination on it. To be able to see along things rather than at them - just like a beam of sunlight that invades the darkness of a toolshed - is, to Lewis, the way to understanding.

In 2004 Kentaro Toyama, an award-winning computer scientist, moved to India to start a new research group for Microsoft. Its mission: to explore novel technological solutions to the world's persistent social problems. But after a decade of designing technologies for humanitarian causes, Toyama concluded that no technology, however dazzling, could cause social change on its own.

We know science is awesome, as are its achievements. Yet so far, scientists have managed to sidestep the most awesome reality of all: the true nature of human life, the source of their own genius. How is it that in the overwhelming immensity of the cosmos, on microscopic Earth, human beings exist? We have not yet looked reality in the face and perceived the nobility and grandeur of who we are, each of us having a responsibility in the universe and being part of a vast and continuing process.

The world can be a confusing place at time, especially when we are confronted with things that appear to contradict the Christian teachings so many of us cherish. When science and theology clash, there can sometimes seem to be no way of finding a compromise, but when we see the difficulties faced by transgender people, the solution requires a combination approach from medical science, philosophy, and theology.

A former police officer shares his investigative journey into anarchy, revealing unpopular truths that many people find to be discomforting. The author spent his adult life with a particular view of anarchism. After retiring from law enforcement, he became interested in philosophy, morality, reason, logic, and being the best darn himself that he could build. This included relational, financial and philosophical arenas.

Everyone has secrets, and everyone is living a double life to some degree. The world is held up by lies; if everyone's secrets were to all be revealed tomorrow morning, civilization might collapse. To ascend the social hierarchies and achieve great power, you need to optimize and strategize rather than slogging and "working hard" every day of your life. This is counterproductive since it does not guarantee any beneficial results in the end. Nobody can succeed by following rules in the first place.

In Arguing for a Better World, philosopher Arianne Shahvisi shows us how to work through thorny moral questions by examining their parts in broad daylight, equipping us to not only identify our own positions but to defend them as well. This book demonstrates the relevance of philosophy to our everyday lives, and offers some clear-eyed tools to those who want to learn how to better fight for justice and liberation for all.

As consumers of art, and especially as fans, we have a host of tricky moral question to navigate: do the moral lives of artists affect the aesthetic quality of their work? In Drawing the Line, Erich Hatala Matthes argues that it doesn't matter whether we can separate the art from the artist, because we shouldn't. Matthes argues both that the lives of artists can play an important role in shaping our moral and aesthetic relationship to the artworks that we love and that these same artworks offer us powerful resources for grappling with the immorality of their creators.

It seems that just about every new technology that we bring to bear on improving our lives brings with it some downside, side effect, or unintended consequence. These issues can pose very real and growing ethical problems for all of us. For example, automated facial recognition can make life easier and safer for us—but it also poses huge issues with regard to privacy, ownership of data, and even identity theft. Technology Is Not Neutral addresses one of today’s most pressing problems: How to create and use tools and technologies to maximize benefits and minimize harms.

Is philanthropy, by its very nature, a threat to today's democracy? Though we may laud wealthy individuals who give away their money for society's benefit, Just Giving reveals how such generosity not only isn't the unassailable good we think it to be but might also undermine democratic values and set back aspirations of justice.

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.

We like to think of ourselves, our friends, and our families as decent people. We may not be saints, but we are still honest, relatively kind, and mostly trustworthy. Christian Miller argues here that we are badly mistaken in thinking this. Hundreds of recent studies in psychology tell a different story: that we all have serious character flaws that prevent us from being as good as we think we are - and that we do not even recognize that these flaws exist.