Science Ethics

What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combinationof passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine.

In 2008, the American economy collapsed, taking with it millions of Americans' jobs, homes, and life savings. The impending financial crisis was devastating, and many are still feeling its effects today. Though the crisis was debilitating, the US government has yet to implement policies that would prevent a repeat of the Great Recession. Nothing Is Too Big to Fail holds a microscope to the very policies and corruption that led to this major economic recession.

Thoughtful observers agree that the planetary crisis we now face - climate change; species extinction; the destruction of entire ecosystems; the urgent need for a more just economic-political order - is pushing human civilization to a radical turning point: change or perish. But precisely how to change remains an open question.

"Civil Disobedience" is an essay by Henry David Thoreau. Published in 1849 under the title "Resistance to Civil Government", it expressed Thoreau’s belief that people should not allow governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that people have a duty both to avoid doing injustice directly and to avoid allowing their acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican-American War.

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.

It has been proclaimed many times, but perhaps never more convincingly than now, when every news cycle seems to deliver further confirmation of a world gone mad. Is this the endgame? Author Spencer Klavan is a classicist, with a Ph.D. from Oxford, and a deep understanding of the West. His analysis: The situation is dire. But every crisis we face today, we have faced before. And we can surmount each one. Klavan brings to the West’s defense the insights of Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, and the Founding Fathers to show that in the wisdom of the past lies hope for the future.

Robin Attfield introduces environmental ethics, exploring the values involved in issues, such as pollution, habitat loss, and climate change. Considering the different groups involved in environmental ethics and the attitudes of the world's religions to environmental stewardship, he calls for action from us all to manage our environment ethically.

When you are faced with a decision, do you consider the best outcome, or do you consider your deepest values about which actions are appropriate? The Cost of Conviction contrasts these two primary strategies for making decisions: consequentialism, the former, or prioritizing one's sacred values, the latter. Steven Sloman argues that, while both modes of decision making are necessary tools for a good decision maker, people err by deploying sacred values more often than they should, especially when it comes to sociopolitical issues.

This poignant philosophy about the human capacity for love in the face of tragedy from New York Times bestselling author Erich Fromm is as relevant today as it was when it was first broadcast. Transcribed from a series of recorded conversations streamed over German public radio in 1970, the profound ideas and thoughts collected in this volume represent a lifetime of the renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher's explorations into human emotion and behavior throughout the twentieth century.

In the tract on Liberty, Mill is advocating the rights of the individual as against Society at the very opening of an era that was rapidly coming to the conclusion that the individual had no absolute rights against Society. The eighteenth century view is that individuals existed first, each with their own special claims and responsibilities: that they deliberately formed a Social State, either by a contract or otherwise, and that then finally they limited their own action out of regard for the interests of the social organism thus arbitrarily produced.

Janet Malcolm delves into the psychopathology of journalism using a strange and unprecedented lawsuit as her larger-than-life example: the lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision. Examining the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject, Malcolm finds that neither journalist nor subject can avoid the moral impasse that is built into the journalistic situation.

Long before the U.S. government began conducting secret radiation and germ-warfare experiments, and long before the Tuskegee syphilis experiments, medical professionals had introduced—and hotly debated the ethics of—the use of human subjects in medical experiments. In Subjected to Science, Susan Lederer provides the first full-length history of biomedical research with human subjects in the earlier period, from 1890 to 1940.

Divine Providence is one of the major works of the Enlightenment scientist and religious seer Emanuel Swedenborg. It provides a coherent and satisfying solution to what has been called "the problem of evil": How are God's goodness and power reconcilable with evil's presences in the larger world and in the human mind and heart?

Like Sun Tzu's Art of War, Machiavelli's Prince, and Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching, Gracian's Art of Worldly Wisdom is one of those rare books that serve as enlightening guides and companions for life.

A stirring case for a wholesale reimagining of the framing, tactics, and goals we employ in our journey to heal from ecological destruction With research and insight, Charles Eisenstein details how the quantification of the natural world leads to a lack of integration and our “fight”...

While free markets have brought positive change, traditional capitalism cannot solve problems of inequality and poverty because of its view of people as solely profit-driven. In fact, humans have other drives and passions, including spiritual, social, and altruistic.

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.

Mogel’s sage advice on parenting young children has struck a chord with thousands of readers and made her one of today’s most trusted parenting authorities. Now, in a longawaited followup, Mogel addresses the question she hears most frequently: what to do when those children become teenagers, their sense of independence and entitlement grows, the pressure to compete and succeed skyrockets, and communication becomes fraught with obstacles.

As Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley, and Iris Murdoch labored to make a place for themselves in a male-dominated world, as they made friendships and families, and as they drifted toward and away from each other, they never stopped insisting that some lives are better than others. Drawing on a cluster of recently opened archives and extensive correspondence and interviews with those who knew them best, Benjamin Lipscomb traces the lives and ideas of four friends who gave us a better way to think about ethics, and ourselves.

Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics is one of the most influential works on morality, virtue, and the pursuit of a good life. However, its dense, ancient language makes it difficult for many listeners to grasp. This edition removes barriers to understanding Aristotle's ideas, presenting them in clear, accessible language while preserving the depth and power of his philosophy.