Science Ethics

Being a stoic means embracing positivity and self-control through the ability to accept the uncertainty of outcomes. With this stoicism guide, the beginner stoic will learn how to take charge of their emotions on the path to sustained happiness and satisfaction. This easy-to-navigate stoicism guide gives you the emotional tools needed to let go of the things you can’t control and find joy in what you have.

As it was in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and Othello, so it is in life. Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Acts of adultery and other personal betrayals, financial fraud, government corruption - even murder and genocide - generally require an additional moral defect: a willingness to lie. In Lying, bestselling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie.

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.

Written in Greek by an intellectual Roman emperor without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a wide range of fascinating spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the leader struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. Spanning from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the question of virtue, human rationality, the nature of the gods and Aurelius's own emotions.

Racial Justice and the Catholic Church examines the presence of racism in America from its early history through the Civil Rights Movement and the election of Barack Obama. It also explores how Catholic social teaching has been used - and not used - to promote reconciliation and justice.

In this book, Emrys Westacott examines why, for more than two millennia, so many philosophers and people with a reputation for wisdom have been advocating frugality and simple living as the key to the good life. He also looks at why most people have ignored them, but argues that, in a world facing environmental crisis, it may finally be time to listen to the advocates of a simpler way of life.

For the ancients, everything worth pursuing in life flowed from a strong sense of justice—or one’s commitment to doing the right thing, no matter how difficult. In order to be courageous, wise, and self-disciplined, one must begin with justice. The influence of the modern world often tells us that acting justly is optional. Holiday argues that that’s simply untrue—and the fact that so few people today have the strength to stand by their convictions explains much about why we’re so unhappy.

In the popular imagination, superhuman artificial intelligence is an approaching tidal wave that threatens not just jobs and human relationships, but civilization itself. Conflict between humans and machines is seen as inevitable and its outcome all too predictable. In this groundbreaking audiobook, distinguished AI researcher Stuart Russell argues that this scenario can be avoided, but only if we rethink AI from the ground up. Russell begins by exploring the idea of intelligence in humans and in machines.

Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” yet take no steps to live examined ones. In Open Socrates, acclaimed philosopher Agnes Callard recovers the radical move at the center of Socrates’ thought, and shows why it is still the way to a good life.

The American president has come to be the most powerful figure in the world. And back in the 19th century, a great man held that office. William Lee Miller's new book closely examines that great man in that hugely important office: Abraham Lincoln as president.

It’s not your imagination: We’re living in a time of moral decline. Publicly, we’re bombarded with reports of government leaders acting against the welfare of their constituents; companies prioritizing profits over health, safety, and our best interests; and technology posing risks to society with few or no repercussions for those responsible. Personally, we may be conflicted about how much privacy to afford our children on the internet; how to make informed choices about our purchases and the companies we buy from; or how to handle misconduct we witness at home and at work.

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.

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics represent, in many ways, the Western classical springboard for the systematic study and implementation of ethics, the optimum behaviour of the individual. (By contrast, Aristotle’s Politics concerns the optimum blueprint for the city-state.) It is in the hands of each individual, he argues in these books on personal ethics, to develop a character which bases a life on virtue, with positive but moderate habits.

On the face of it, a simple book of 26 poem fables sharing one man’s wisdom. But The Prophet is so much more than that. It has inspired people from John F Kennedy to The Beatles and became the '60s Bible of counterculture – all because of the timeless truths it shared. Each poem takes a different theme – pleasure, beauty, freedom, joy and sorrow – as the fictional Al Mustapha shares his thoughts and experiences as he prepares to travel back to his island home.

Self Help was published in 1859 by Samuel Smiles. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism". Self Help sold 20,000 copies within one year of its publication. By the time of Smiles' death in 1904, it had sold over a quarter of a million. Self-Help elevated Smiles to celebrity status; almost overnight, he became a leading pundit and much-consulted guru.

Many think of the internet as an unprecedented and overwhelmingly positive achievement of modern human technology. But is it? In The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, Justin Smith offers an original deep history of the internet, from the ancient to the modern world - uncovering its surprising origins in nature and centuries-old dreams of radically improving human life by outsourcing thinking to machines and communicating across vast distances.

Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was the final famous Stoic philosopher of the ancient world. The Meditations, his personal journal, survives to this day as one of the most loved self-help and spiritual classics of all time. In How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, psychotherapist Donald Robertson weaves stories of Marcus’s life from the Roman histories together with explanations of Stoicism—its philosophy and its psychology—to enlighten today’s listeners. He discusses Stoic techniques for coping with everyday problems, from irrational fears and bad habits to anger, pain, and illness.

The great insights of the Stoics are spread over a wide range of ancient sources. This book brings them all together for the first time. It systematically presents what the various Stoic philosophers said on every important topic, accompanied by an eloquent commentary that is clear and concise. The result is a set of philosophy lessons for everyone - the most valuable wisdom of ages past made available for our times, and for all time.

Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we allow corporations to pay for the right to pollute the atmosphere? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars? Auctioning admission to elite universities? Selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay?

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle delves into the question of what is best for mankind and humans as individuals. His conclusion is that happiness is the best possible human condition, though he is not referencing the emotion of happiness. Instead, Aristotle concludes that true happiness comes as a way of life in which the individual contributes to the good of his community, as well as his mind.