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.

When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. Fathoms: The World in the Whale is “a work of bright and careful genius” (Robert Moor, New York Times best-selling author of On Trails), one that blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? How has whale culture been both understood and changed by human technology?

In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, first published in 1690, John Locke (1632-1704) provides a complete account of how we acquire everyday, mathematical, natural scientific, religious and ethical knowledge. Rejecting the theory that some knowledge is innate in us, Locke argues that it derives from sense perceptions and experience, as analysed and developed by reason. While defending these central claims with vigorous common sense, Locke offers many incidental - and highly influential - reflections on space and time, meaning, free will and personal identity.

One of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the history of Western thought, St Thomas Aquinas established the foundations for much of modern philosophy of religion, and is famous for his arguments for the existence of God. In this cogent and multifaceted introduction to the great saint's work, Edward Feser argues that you cannot fully understand Aquinas' philosophy without his theology, and vice-versa. He covers Aquinas' thoughts on the soul, natural law, metaphysics, and more.

In Man for Himself, Erich Fromm examines the confusion of modern women and men who, because they lack faith in any principle by which life ought to be guided, become the helpless prey forces both within and without. From the broad, interdisciplinary perspective that marks Fromm's distinguished oeuvre, he shows that psychology cannot divorce itself from the problems of philosophy and ethics, and that human nature cannot be understood without understanding the values and moral conflicts that confront us all.

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats, and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or 10? They adopt 20.

Le savoir-vivre existe dans toutes les cultures et à toutes les époques. À l'heure des " incivilités ", la politesse reste une valeur phare dans les sondages. Preuve s'il en est de son utilité et de son actualité. Elle ne se réduit pas à une suite de prescriptions. Système de valeurs fondé sur le respect, la reconnaissance et la réciprocité, elle permet à chacun de trouver sa place, de défendre son image et de construire son identité.

While quackery—loosely defined as the spread of false "knowledge," often accompanied by various versions of "snake oil"—is not a novel phenomenon, it has never posed as great a threat to public health as today. In Quack Quack, Dr. Joe Schwarcz focuses on the deluge of anecdotes, cherry-picked data, pseudoscientific nonsense, and seductive baseless health claims that undermine efforts to educate the public about evidence-based science. The wide scope of the topics drawn from past and present aims to cast a life preserver to people drowning in a sea of misinformation.

For twenty years, Mark Tuitert has used the principles of Stoic philosophy to become a gold-medal winning Olympic champion athlete, successful entrepreneur, as well as to deal with the challenges in his professional and private life. Now, in the internationally bestselling book The Stoic Mindset, Mark lays out the ten practical lessons through which everyone, in any situation, can develop a Stoic mindset.

A provocative and positive response to Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and other New Atheists, Good Without God makes a bold claim for what nonbelievers do share and believe. Epstein's Good Without God provides a constructive, challenging response to these manifestos by getting to the heart of Humanism and its positive belief in tolerance, community, morality, and good without having to rely on the guidance of a higher being.

W. H. Auden once wrote that "art is our chief means of breaking bread with the dead." In his brilliant and compulsively listenable new treatise, Alan Jacobs shows us that engaging with the strange and wonderful writings of the past might help us live less anxiously in the present - and increase what Thomas Pynchon once called our "personal density." Today we are battling too much information in a society changing at lightning speed, with algorithms aimed at shaping our every thought - plus a sense that history offers no resources, only impediments to overcome or ignore.

Stoicism offers rationally grounded, proven psychological techniques for the gradual development of consistent self-mastery, and emotional detachment from those elements of the human condition that tend to cause the most pervasive and unsettling forms of fear, anxiety, and avoidable disquiet. In the essays in A Life Worth Living, William Ferraiolo examines what it means to incorporate Stoicism into 21st century life, adapting classical Stoic philosophy for the modern day.

Does free will exist? The question has fueled heated debates spanning from philosophy to psychology and religion. The answer has major implications, and the stakes are high. To put it in the simple terms that have come to dominate these debates, if we are free to make our own decisions, we are accountable for what we do, and if we aren't free, we're off the hook.

In Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs identifies two distinct moral syndromes—one governing commerce, the other politics—and explores what happens when these two syndromes collide. She looks at business fraud and criminal enterprise, government’s overextended subsidies to agriculture, and transit police who abuse the system the are supposed to enforce, and asks us to consider instances in which snobbery is a virtue and industry a vice.

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.

Hoy día podemos comprar casi cualquier cosa con nuestros teléfonos de última generación sin mover el culo del sofá de nuestra casa, comunicarnos al instante con una persona que se encuentre al otro lado del planeta, medios de transporte inimaginables hace tan sólo 100 años que han acercado los continentes, calefacción en invierno, aire acondicionado en verano, televisión por cable, Internet de alta velocidad. Todas estas comodidades nos hacen vivir dormidos en un cómodo sueño de seguridad perpetua totalmente falso.

Woher kommt Moral und wie zeigt sie sich heute? Moderne Gesellschaften sind Krisengesellschaften: Universelle Werte sind erodiert, eine allgemeingültige Moral scheint für immer der Vergangenheit anzugehören. Doch der Schein trügt: Tatsächlich gibt es universelle Werte, die alle Menschen miteinander teilen.

In 1972, the young philosopher Peter Singer published "Famine, Affluence and Morality," which rapidly became one of the most widely discussed essays in applied ethics. Through this article, Singer presents his view that we have the same moral obligations to those far away as we do to those close to us. He argued that choosing not to send life-saving money to starving people on the other side of the earth is the moral equivalent of neglecting to save drowning children because we prefer not to muddy our shoes. If we can help, we must—and any excuse is hypocrisy.

David Hume (1711-1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely thought of as a philosopher with practical wisdom to offer. Yet Hume's philosophy is grounded in an honest assessment of nature - human nature in particular. The Great Guide is an engaging and eye-opening account of how Hume's thought should serve as the basis for a complete approach to life. Julian Baggini masterfully interweaves biography with intellectual history and philosophy to give us a complete vision of Hume's guide to life.

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.