Social Ethics

Noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days chronicling his near-isolation in the small cabin he built in the woods near Walden Pond on land owned by his mentor, the father of Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Immersing himself in nature and solitude, Thoreau sought to develop a greater understanding of society amidst a life of self-reliance and simplicity. Originally published in 1854, Walden remains one of the most celebrated works in American literature.

Every time we eat, we have the power to radically transform the world we live in. Our choices can help alleviate the most pressing issues we face today: the climate crisis, infectious and chronic diseases, human exploitation and, of course, non-human exploitation. Undeniably, these issues can be uncomfortable to learn about but the benefits of doing so cannot be overstated. It is quite literally a matter of life and death.

To flourish, humans need to develop virtues of independent thought and acknowledged social dependence. In this book, a leading moral philosopher presents a comparison of humans to other animals and explores the impact of these virtues.

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat is a highly entertaining and illuminating journey through the full spectrum of human-animal relations. Drawing on his groundbreaking research in the field of anthrozoology, Dr. Hal Herzog tries to make sense of our complex relationships with animals and the challenging moral conundrums we face regarding these creatures who share our world - and some, our homes. .

This is an audiobook about the big questions in life: knowledge, consciousness, fate, God, truth, goodness, justice. It is for anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how to approach them. Think sets out to explain what they are and why they are important. Simon Blackburn begins by putting forward a convincing case for the study of philosophy and goes on to give the listener a sense of how the great historical figures such as Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein have approached its central themes.

In the Nicomachean Ethics (so called after their first editor, Aristotle's son Nicomachus) Aristotle sets out to discover the good life for man: the life of happiness or eudaimonia. Happiness for Aristotle is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue. Virtue is shown in the deliberate choice of actions as part of a worked-out plan of life, a plan which takes a middle course between excess and deficiency.

The statesman, orator, and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero remains a writer whose influence has been felt for many centuries. Tusculan Disputations is his most wide-ranging philosophical work, and was intended to introduce the Roman people to the pleasures and benefits of the study of philosophy. In a series of stimulating dialogues, Tusculan Disputations examines some of the most fundamental questions of human life: the fear of death, the endurance of pain, the alleviation of sorrow, the various disorders of the soul, and the necessity of virtue for a happy life.

In this Tenth Anniversary Edition of The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer brings his landmark book up to date. In addition to restating his compelling arguments about how we should respond to extreme poverty, he examines the progress we are making and recounts how the first edition transformed the lives both of audiences and the people they helped. Learn how you can be part of the solution, doing good for others while adding fulfillment to your own life.

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.

Hiking with Nietzsche is a tale of two philosophical journeys - one made by John Kaag as an introspective young man of 19, the other 17 years later and in quite different circumstances: as a husband and father. Both journeys are made in search of the wisdom at the core of Nietzsche's philosophy, but they deliver him to radically different interpretations and, more crucially, revelations about the human condition.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics and government.

Activists from Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi to the Movement for Black Lives have long recognized that there are times when, rather than having a duty to obey the law, we have a duty to disobey it. Taking seriously the history of this activism, A Duty to Resist wrestles with the problem of political obligation in real world societies that harbor injustice. Candice Delmas argues that the duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and political association impose responsibility to resist under conditions of injustice.

Just and Unjust Wars has forever changed how we think about the ethics of conflict. In this modern classic, political philosopher Michael Walzer examines the moral issues that arise before, during, and after the wars we fight. Reaching from the Athenian attack on Melos, to the Mai Lai massacre, to the war in Afghanistan and beyond, Walzer mines historical and contemporary accounts and the testimony of participants, decision makers, and victims to explain when war is justified and what ethical limitations apply to those who wage it.

EL ANTICRISTO: El Anticristo de Friedrich Nietzsche —filósofo que entendió mejor que ningún otro el mundo de finales del XIX; es decir, la deshumanización, el colonialismo y los cambios producto de la industrialización— despliega, en este libro, una crítica profunda a la religión cristiana, dado que identifica todo el mal social en el cristianismo, reivindicando la virtud del espíritu libre.

Para los antiguos, la justicia iba mucho más allá que lo que sucedía en un tribunal. Era mucho más urgente que las ideas que se debatían en las aulas de Filosofía. Implicaba una forma de vida, el compromiso personal de hacer lo correcto por difícil que fuera.

No nation can be greater than the strength of its individual homes or the virtue of its people. Sadly, many today would say ours is a nation in crisis. Families are splintering around us, our children are becoming alienated from their great cultural heritage, and our leaders seem increasingly out of touch. Yet, according to Gordon B. Hinckley, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, one cannot lose hope.

Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The plane maker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever.

Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. The work dramatically rejects traditional Western thought with its notions of truth and God, good and evil. Nietzsche seeks to demonstrate that the Christian world is steeped in a false piety and infected with a 'slave morality'. With wit and energy, he turns from this critique to a philosophy that celebrates the present and demands that the individual impose their own 'will to power' upon the world.

The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. It was one of over ten attempts throughout the course of his life. But he didn’t die, and like many who consider taking their own lives, he hid the attempt, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck, and vague explanations. In How Not to Kill Yourself, Martin chronicles his suicide attempts in an intimate depiction of the mindset of someone obsessed with self-destruction. The result is a work that powerfully gives voice to what to many has long been incomprehensible.

Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. He argues that our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of science, religion, money, technology, economics, medicine, and education as we know them. It has fired our near-pathological pursuit of technological Utopias even as we push ourselves and our planet to the brink of collapse.