Social Ethics

Most Americans are now familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its prevalence among troops. In this groundbreaking new audiobook, David Wood examines the far more pervasive yet less understood experience of those we send to war: moral injury, the violation of our fundamental values of right and wrong that so often occurs in the impossible moral dilemmas of modern conflict.

If, as Darwin suggests, evolution relentlessly encourages the survival of the fittest, why are humans compelled to live in cooperative, complex societies? In this fascinating examination of the roots of human trust and virtue, a zoologist and former American editor of The Economist reveals the results of recent studies that suggest that self-interest and mutual aid are not at all incompatible. In fact, he points out, our cooperative instincts may have evolved as part of mankind's natural selfish behavior - by exchanging favors we can benefit ourselves as well as others.

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story - up to a certain point. "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground", he said, "and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened." It is precisely this point - that of a people faced with the end of their way of life - that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Lear's view, Plenty Coups' story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all.

The World Peace Diet has been called one of the most important books of the 21st century: the foundation of a new society based on the truth of the interconnectedness of all life. It is the first book to make explicit the invisible connections between our meals and our broad range of problems -psychological, social, and spiritual, as well as health and environmental. It offers powerful ways we can all experience healing and peace and contribute to a positive transformation of human consciousness.

A listener-friendly guide to Zen Buddhist ethics for modern times. In the West, Zen Buddhism has a reputation for paradoxes that defy logic. In particular, the Buddhist concept of nonduality—the realization that everything in the Universe forms a single, integrated whole—is especially difficult to grasp. In The Other Side of Nothing, Zen teacher Brad Warner untangles the mystery and explains nonduality in plain English.

The Fable of the Bees—a satirical poem, prose discussion, three essays and six dialogues completed in 1729—exposes human vices but defends them as a necessity within a wealthy society. Mandeville’s bees thrive until they start living by honesty and virtue… then they are impoverished. Mandeville did not play by the rules: he satirized the sins of society but also ridiculed the widespread hypocrisy of deploring these sins whilst reaping their benefits. He and his work were attacked for the rest of the century.

In the COVID crisis, the beloved shepherd of over one billion Catholics saw the cruelty and inequity of our society exposed more vividly than ever before. He also saw, in the resilience, generosity, and creativity of so many people, the means to rescue our society, our economy, and our planet. In direct, powerful prose, Pope Francis urges us not to let the pain be in vain.

Publicado por primera vez en 1781 y revisado en 1787, Crítica de la Razón Pura es considerada la obra maestra de Kant y una de las piezas centrales de la filosofía moderna. Kant busca responder a preguntas fundamentales sobre la naturaleza del conocimiento humano, la relación entre la experiencia y la realidad, y los límites de la razón. La Crítica de la Razón Pura marcó un punto de inflexión en la filosofía al proponer que ni el empirismo ni el racionalismo por sí solos podían explicar completamente el conocimiento humano.

Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire from AD 161-180. He wrote the 12 books of the Meditations as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. It is possible that large portions of the work were written at Sirmium, where he spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180. Some of it was written while he was positioned at Aquincum on campaign in Pannonia, because internal notes tell us that the first book was written when he was campaigning against the Quadi on the river Granova and the second book was written at Carnuntum.

On the face of it, Avatar: The Last Airbender is a story about a lone superhero. However, saving the world is a team effort, embodied in Team Avatar, aka the Gaang. Aang needs help from his friends and tutors, even from non-human animals. Avatar: The Last Airbender and Philosophy brings to the fore the Eastern, Western, and Indigenous philosophies that are implicit in the show. This volume features contributions by experts on Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and Indigenous schools of thought, next to focusing on Western classical authors.

The concept of law lies at the heart of our social and political life. Legal philosophy, or jurisprudence, explores the notion of law and its role in society, illuminating its meaning and its relation to the universal questions of justice, rights, and morality. In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Raymond Wacks analyzes the nature and purpose of the legal system and the practice by courts, lawyers, and judges.

Through inspirational storytelling, scientific evidence, practical advice, captivating exercises, and poetry, Dr. Sanjiv Chopra and Gina Vild present a powerful message that shows you how to achieve happiness no matter the challenges and stumbling blocks you face along the way. They also reveal the best way to be happy: Discover and live your life's purpose. It's a sure path to human flourishing. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that living with purpose can even add years to your life.

Bushido: El código del Samurái, publicado por primera vez en 1905, nos abre las puertas a las tradiciones del reservado mundo de los samuráis. Nunca antes nadie había explicado la vida de los samuráis en español, ni había trazado cómo su código ha moldeado el carácter del pueblo japonés. Nitobe explica todos los aspectos de la vida de los samuráis, desde el arte del uso de la espada hasta su filosofía ética.

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.

Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence - how to be a human being in the world? - while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him.

Reparations for slavery have become a reinvigorated topic for public debate over the last decade. Most theorizing about reparations treats it as a social justice project—either rooted in reconciliatory justice focused on making amends in the present; or, they focus on the past, emphasizing restitution for historical wrongs. Olúfemi O. Táiwò argues that neither approach is optimal, and advances a different case for reparations—one rooted in a hopeful future that tackles the issue of climate change head on, with distributive justice at its core.

Career success, a beautiful life, a beautiful Instagram account - what's the point? In a world where meaning has become twisted into a form of currency that everyone is very keen to cash in on, journalist Wendy Syfret invites you to change the way you think about the way you think. In her seminal work, The Sunny Nihilist, Syfret presents the optimism in nihilism, encouraging us to dismantle our self-care and self-centered way of living and accept a life more or less ordinary.

La proclamación neoliberal de la libertad se manifiesta en realidad como un imperativo paradójico: sé libre. Domina una economía de la supervivencia en la que cada uno es su propio empresario. El neoliberalismo, con sus desinhibidos impulsos narcisistas del yo y del rendimiento, es el infierno de lo igual, una sociedad de la depresión y el cansancio compuesta por sujetos aislados.

Armies know all about killing. It is what they do, and ours does it more effectively than most. We are painfully coming to realize, however, that we are also especially good at killing our own ''from the inside out,'' silently, invisibly. In every major war since Korea, more of our veterans have taken their lives than have lost them in combat. The latest research, rooted in veteran testimony, reveals that the most severe and intractable PTSD - fraught with shame, despair, and suicide - stems from "moral injury".

Neither Washington DC, Wall Street, Mexico, China, the Feds, nor the media are the cause of our problems - nor are they the cure. What happens after all the bogeymen have been vanquished? What if opposing the incompetence of the European Union, the biases of the American media, the corruption of crony capitalism, the arrogance of political power brokers, and allegedly unfair global trade deals is not enough? The key to American prosperity in this new era of populism is for moral people to make responsibility matter again by renewing personal virtue.