Social Ethics

A book of everyday ethics by a man whom Pope St. John Paul II called “one of the great ethicists of the 20th century”, The Art of Living is Dietrich von Hildebrand’s essential guide to the moral life. In just over four hours, Dietrich von Hildebrand, with his wife Alice, presents a distinctive view of the virtuous life that begins with reverence, “the mother of all virtues”, and includes chapters on “Faithfulness”, “Goodness”, “Hope”, “The Human Heart”, and many others.

We think we know cultural appropriation when we see it. Blackface or Native American headdresses as Halloween costumes—these clearly give offense. But what about Cardi B posing as the Hindu goddess Durga in a Reebok ad, AA's twelve-step invocation of God, or the earnest namaste you utter at the end of yoga class? Liz Bucar unpacks the ethical dilemmas of a messy form of cultural appropriation: the borrowing of religious doctrines, rituals, and dress for political, economic, and therapeutic reasons.

When Moral Politics was first published two decades ago, it redefined how Americans think and talk about politics through the lens of cognitive political psychology. Today, George Lakoff's classic text has become all the more relevant, as liberals and conservatives have come to hold even more vigorously opposed views of the world, with the underlying assumptions of their respective worldviews at the level of basic morality.

Le "Discours de la méthode" est un texte composite, assez peu méthodique en vérité, qui touche à la morale, à la logique, aux sciences. La méthode proprement dite se résume en peu de règles : "ne recevoir jamais aucune chose pour vraie, que je ne la connusse évidemment être telle" ; "diviser chacune des difficultés que j'examinerais" ; "conduire par ordre mes pensées" et m'assurer, par des "dénombrements si entiers, et des revues si générales", de n'avoir rien omis dans ces "chaînes de raisons", sur le modèle des géomètres.

Americans are in the midst of a world-historic drug binge. Opiates, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, marijuana, antidepressants, antipsychotics—across the board, consumption has shot up in the twenty-first century. At the same time, the United States is home to the largest prison system in the world, justified in part by a now zombified "war" on drugs. How did we get here?

The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by the United Nations in 2015, comprise an ambitious and sweeping agenda that unites economic, social, and environmental aims. What resources do the world's religious and secular traditions offer in support of these objectives? Which principles do these traditions hold in common? This book presents an in-depth and deeply engaged conversation among interfaith religious leaders and interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners in pursuit of an ethical consensus that could ground sustainable development efforts.

Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire at its height, yet he remained untainted by the immense wealth and absolute power that had corrupted many of his predecessors. He knew the secret of how to live the good life amid trying and often catastrophic circumstances, of how to find happiness and peace when surrounded by misery and turmoil, and how to make the right choices—even if they are more difficult—without regard for self-interest. Meditations brings Marcus’s inspiring words to life and shows his wisdom to be as relevant today as it was in the second century.

To the modern mind, the idea of honor is outdated, sexist, and barbaric. It evokes Hamilton and Burr and pistols at dawn, not visions of a well-organized society. But for philosopher Tamler Sommers, a sense of honor is essential to living moral lives. In Why Honor Matters, Sommers argues that our collective rejection of honor has come at great cost. Reliant only on Enlightenment liberalism, the United States has become the home of the cowardly, the shameless, the selfish, and the alienated. Properly channeled, honor encourages virtues like courage, integrity, and solidarity.

In this wide-ranging book, Martha C. Nussbaum, one of our leading public intellectuals, argues that anger is conceptually confused and normatively pernicious. It assumes that the suffering of the wrongdoer restores the thing that was damaged, and it betrays an all-too-lively interest in relative status and humiliation. Studying anger in intimate relationships, casual daily interactions, the workplace, the criminal justice system, and movements for social transformation, Nussbaum shows that anger's core ideas are both infantile and harmful.

What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere - at work, at home, on the road, and in the public sphere. Encountering one causes great difficulty and personal strain, especially because we often cannot understand why exactly someone should be acting like that.

Understanding the basis of making moral choices is crucial as society becomes increasingly complex. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics gives college students a solid grounding in both theory of ethics and its applications to the social issues of today. Avoiding undue dogmatism, Professor Scott B. Rae outlines the distinctive elements of Christian ethics.

Many think of the internet as an unprecedented and overwhelmingly positive achievement of modern human technology. But is it? In The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, Justin Smith offers an original deep history of the internet, from the ancient to the modern world - uncovering its surprising origins in nature and centuries-old dreams of radically improving human life by outsourcing thinking to machines and communicating across vast distances.

In this engaging, fun, and astute investigation of a thoroughly contemporary condition, philosopher and former pro skater Nick Riggle argues that our collective interest in being awesome (and not sucking) marks a new era in American culture, one that is shaped by relatively recent social, political, and technological shifts.

Written in Greek, without any intention of publication, by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. Ranging from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the nature of moral virtue, human rationality, divine providence, and Marcus' own emotions.

As much of the world's population grows older, the quest for a "good death" has become a significant issue. For many, the right to die often means the right to die with dignity. The Inevitable moves beyond margins of the law to the people who are meticulously planning their final hours - far from medical offices, legislative chambers, hospital ethics committees, and polite conversation - and the people who help them, loved ones or clandestine groups on the Internet known as the "euthanasia underground".

Skeptics believe we don’t need God to understand reality, and that science and reason hold the keys to building a better world. Faith is blind, and there is no credible evidence for God’s existence - especially the God of the Bible. Therefore, science and religious belief are deeply incompatible, and God is no longer relevant to our modern world. But if there is no God, how can our lives have any meaning? How can we make sense of good and evil, truth, justice, beauty, rationality, or even science itself?

Gaius Musonius Rufus was a Roman Stoic philosopher of the first century AD. He has been referred to as the Roman Socrates and is also remembered for being the teacher of Epictetus. He taught philosophy in Rome during the reign of Nero and so was sent into exile in 65 AD, returning to Rome only under Galba. Twenty-one of his lectures survive together with a few fragmentary notes from others, all of which are contained in this narration.

A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates.

What is the work ethic? Does it justify policies that promote the wealth and power of the One Percent at workers' expense? Or does it advance policies that promote workers' dignity and standing? Hijacked explores how the history of political economy has been a contest between these two ideas about whom the work ethic is supposed to serve.

Best selling author Po Bronson began work on What Should I Do with My Life? at a time when he was asking himself that very question. For answers, he crossed the landscape of America to find people who have struggled to unearth their true calling - people of all ages, classes, and professions who have found fulfillment: those who fought with the seduction of money, intensity, and novelty and overcame their allure; those who broke away from the chorus to learn the sound of their own voice.