Showing results for "Media Politics" in Ethics & Morality

Enjoy this Friedrich Nietzsche collection combining two of Nietzsche's most noteworthy pieces, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, into one audiobook!

Most people believe that they were either benefited or at least not harmed by being brought into existence. Thus, if they ever do reflect on whether they should bring others into existence—rather than having children without even thinking about whether they should—they presume that they do them no harm. Better Never to Have Been challenges these assumptions. David Benatar argues that coming into existence is always a serious harm.

How much faith should we place in what scientists tell us? Is it possible for scientific knowledge to be fully "objective"? What, really, can be defined as science? In the second edition of this very short introduction, Samir Okasha explores the main themes and theories of contemporary philosophy of science and investigates fascinating, challenging questions such as these.

This second edition of the Very Short Introduction on ethics has revised and updated aspects of the original to reflect changing times and mores. It highlights the importance of an understanding of approaches to ethics and its foundations, confronted as we are with a fluid and uncertain world of eroding trust, swirling conspiracy theories, and a dismaying loss of respect in public discourse.

There is an epidemic of bad thinking in the world today. When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People provides an engaging tour through the basic principles of logic, argument, evidence, and probability that can make all of us more reasonable and responsible citizens.

Noam Chomsky is widely known and deeply admired for being the founder of modern linguistics, one of the founders of the field of cognitive science, and perhaps the most avidly read political theorist and commentator of our time. In these lectures, he presents a lifetime of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas of research to which he has contributed for over half a century.

Thomas Nagel's Mortal Questions explores some fundamental issues concerning the meaning, nature, and value of human life. Questions about our attitudes to death, sexual behavior, social inequality, war, and political power are shown to lead to more obviously philosophical problems about personal identity, consciousness, freedom, and value.

The Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus was one of the most influential teachers of his era, imperial Rome, and his message still resonates with startling clarity today. Alongside Stoics like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, he emphasized ethics in action, displayed in all aspects of life. Merely learning philosophical doctrine and listening to lectures, they believed, will not do one any good unless one manages to interiorize the teachings and apply them to daily life.

All social groups have ideals for behavior, even though ethics vary among different cultures and among individuals within each culture. In trying to understand why, Churchland brings together an understanding of the influences of nature and nurture. She looks to evolution to elucidate how, from birth, our brains are configured to form bonds, to cooperate, and to care. Conscience delves into scientific studies, particularly the fascinating work on twins, to deepen our understanding of whether people have a predisposition to embrace specific ethical stands.

New York Times best-selling author William J. Bennett uses stories, essays, historical vignettes, and contemporary profiles to explore and explain what it means to be a man. Fashioning men has never been easy, but today it seems particularly tough. Boys need heroes to embody the everlasting qualities of manhood: honor, duty, valor, and integrity. Without such role models, boys will naturally choose perpetual childhood over the rigors of becoming a man-as many women, teachers, coaches, employers, and adults in authority can quickly attest.

An analysis about how humanism was replacing religion in modern morality.

The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire and condescended to as destructive and archaic abnegation. But even in the Old Testament, the dual natures of sacrifice, embodying both ritual slaughter and moral rectitude, were at odds. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood. Pursuing the complex lineage of sacrifice in a lyrical discourse, Eagleton focuses on the Old and New Testaments, offering a virtuosic analysis of the crucifixion.

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.

Iris Murdoch once observed: 'philosophy is often a matter of finding occasions on which to say the obvious'. What was obvious to Murdoch, and to all those who read her work, is that Good transcends everything—even God. Throughout her distinguished and prolific writing career, she explored questions of Good and Bad, myth and morality. The framework for Murdoch's questions—and her own conclusions—can be found here.

The many ills of the modern world can be debilitating. With a lot seemingly senseless violence, pain, and destruction, we need a lot of inner strength to overcome cynicism and despair - and to remain hopeful about the future. With Dr. Peale's careful guidance, you can achieve happiness and security by learning how to: conquer your fear; free yourself of guilty feelings; live well and prosper, personally and professionally; become physically healthy - the natural way; stay enthusiastic even in poor circumstances; tackle problems hopefully and creatively; and harness the power of prayer.

Today, human exceptionalism is the norm. Despite occasional nods to animal welfare, we prioritize humanity, often neglecting the welfare of a vast number of beings. As a result, we use hundreds of billions of vertebrates and trillions of invertebrates every year for a variety of purposes. We also plan to use animals, AI systems, and other nonhumans at even higher levels in the future. Yet as the dominant species, humanity has a responsibility to ask: Which nonhumans matter, how much do they matter, and what do we owe them in a world reshaped by human activity and technology?

Stoicism as a Warrior Philosophy grapples with these questions and more. Authored by a serving military professional, it breaks down the most advanced concepts of Stoicism into plain language without oversimplifying. Exhaustively researched, steeped in original sources, and informed by examples from the cutting edge of modern conflict, it builds upon ancient thinking to develop innovative theories of patriotic duty and ethical warfighting.

Conspiracy theories are as old as politics. But conspiracists today have introduced something new - conspiracy without theory. And the new conspiracism has moved from the fringes to the heart of government with the election of Donald Trump. In A Lot of People Are Saying, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum reveal how the new conspiracism differs from classic conspiracy theory, why so few officials speak truth to conspiracy, and what needs to be done to resist it.

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.

In this new kind of introduction to ethical theory, Daniel Muñoz and Sarah Stroud present fifty of the field's most exciting puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments. Over the course of eleven chapters, the authors cover a huge variety of topics, starting with the classic debate between utilitarians and deontologists and ending on existential questions about the future of humanity.