Ethics History

What’s the big idea? Former slave Epictetus argues that since we cannot control the external world, true freedom comes from the reasoned control of one’s own desires and passions. This is the core of Stoic thought that Epictetus taught in Western Greece about AD 100. Stoicism became the dominant moral philosophy of the Hellenistic and Roman world, and Epictetus became its dominant and most respected teacher. Though Epictetus wrote nothing that has survived, writer Arrian attended his lectures and took those notes that preserved Epictetus’ teachings.

Technology rules us as much as laws do. It shapes the legal, social, and ethical environments in which we act. Every time we cross a street, drive a car, or go to the doctor, we submit to the silent power of technology. Yet, much of the time, the influence of technology on our lives goes unchallenged by citizens and our elected representatives. Our embrace of novel technological pathways, Sheila Jasanoff shows, leads to a complex interplay among technology, ethics, and human rights.

How hard-working individuals have kept abortion afloat in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s destruction, and the continued help needed if we want to sustain it When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, many feared it meant the end of abortion access in the United States. Yet the...

The Devil Wins uncovers the complicated history of lying from the early days of the Catholic Church to the Enlightenment, revealing the diversity of attitudes about lying by considering the question from the perspectives of five representative voices - the Devil, God, theologians, courtiers, and women.

An incisive exposé of the widespread, politically motivated “no contact” movement that deconstructs the ideology behind this trend and equips readers to avert estrangement and repair broken relationships from the acclaimed author of Awake, Not Woke There is a new form of relationship...

Bologna, 1858: A police posse, acting on the orders of a Catholic inquisitor, invades the home of a Jewish merchant, Momolo Mortara, wrenches his crying six-year-old son from his arms, and rushes him off in a carriage bound for Rome. His mother is so distraught that she collapses and has to be...

The Zondervan Biblical and Theological Lectures series provides a unique audio learning experience. Unlike a traditional audiobook's direct narration of a book's text, Story of Reality: Audio Lectures includes high quality live-recordings of college-level lectures that cover the important points...

On the Swiss border with Austria in 1938, a police captain refuses to enforce a law barring Jewish refugees from entering his country. In the Balkans half a century later, a Serb from the war-blasted city of Vukovar defies his superiors in order to save the lives of Croats. At the height of the Second Intifada, a member of Israel's most elite military unit informs his commander he doesn't want to serve in the occupied territories.

Beautiful Souls explores the flipside of the banality of evil, mapping out what impels ordinary people to defy the sway of authority and convention.

A vital path home. Employing African epistemologies and an embodied African beingness, this book embraces the revelation and miracle of Blackness. Creating a world worthy of our children requires recalling the dignity and distinction of the African way of life. This book is not written for...

From the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer comes a "dazzling and stimulating" exploration of how the creation of the ten commandments provides the origins to today's law (Library Journal). Alan Dershowitz is one of America's most famous litigation experts. In the Genesis of...

The age of human rights has been kindest to the rich. Even as state violations of political rights garnered unprecedented attention due to human rights campaigns, a commitment to material equality disappeared. In its place, market fundamentalism has emerged as the dominant force in national and global economies. In this provocative book, Samuel Moyn analyzes how and why we chose to make human rights our highest ideals while simultaneously neglecting the demands of a broader social and economic justice.

The perfect book for young readers looking for answers to some of life's biggest questions. Thousands of years ago, ancient philosophers asked some important questions: "Where do we come from?", "What is right and what is wrong?", "Am I real?", and "What is the point of existence?" These...

A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious lines In this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples...

The former top CEO examines the scandalous and corrupt reasons behind obscene pay packages for corporate executives—and explains how this hurts all of us--and how we can stop it. Today, the pay gap between chief executive officers of major U.S. firms and their workers is higher than ever...

A noted neurologist challenges the widespread misunderstanding of brain disease and mental illness. How the Brain Lost Its Mind tells the rich and compelling story of two confounding ailments, syphilis and hysteria, and the extraordinary efforts to confront their effects on mental life. How does...

America emerged from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal with strong democratic values and broadly shared prosperity. But for the past thirty years American politics has been dominated by a conservative movement determined to undermine the New Deal’s achievements. Now, the tide may be...

The New York Times bestselling examination of the worldwide movement for social and environmental change Paul Hawken has spent more than a decade researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot...

The Lost Ark of the Covenant is the real-life account of Professor Tudor Parfitt's effort to recover the revered artifact that contained the Ten Commandments sacred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This holy object disappeared from the Temple in Jerusalem when the Babylonians invaded in 586...

Worldwide, more people die by suicide than by murder, and many more are left behind to grieve. Despite distressing statistics that show suicide rates rising, the subject, long a taboo, is infrequently talked about. In this sweeping intellectual and cultural history, poet and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht channels her grief for two friends lost to suicide into a search for history’s most persuasive arguments against the irretrievable act, arguments she hopes to bring back into public consciousness.

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.