Showing titles in Ethics & Morality

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.

Ewolucja człowieka a w szczególności jego umysłu jest jedną z największych zagadek natury. Koncepcja inteligencji makiawelicznej wyjaśnia w jaki sposób złożoność życia społecznego doprowadziła do powstania tak złożonego mózgu jakim obecnie dysponujemy. Autor wyjaśnia pochodzenie inteligencji społecznej i politycznej. Pokazuje w jaki sposób teoria umysłu, czyli umiejętność przewidywania motywów działania innych osobników stymulowała rozwój naszej inteligencji, w jaki sposób wykształcała się w nas umiejętność obrony przedmakiawelicznymi zakusami innych.

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.

This book argues that children with high self-esteem do better in school, and outlines the positive steps that parents can take to empower their children to meet life's challenges.

Counsels and Maxims is a classic work by noted German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. His work has influenced some of the modern world's greatest thinkers, including Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and Erwin Schrödinger. This piece was originally translated by Thomas Bailey Saunders.

A leading thinker of the Stoic school of philosophy, Epictetus (A.D. 55-135) was a renowned teacher whose students transcribed and compiled his teachings; this collection presents the work of Arrian, a Greek philosopher and historian who was a disciple of Epictetus. In these two brief but highly influential works, Epictetus demonstrates that philosophy is more than a theoretical discipline; it is a way of life based on logic, reason, and self-reflection.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC-AD 65) is one of the most famous Roman philosophers. Instrumental in guiding the Roman Empire under emperor Nero, Seneca influenced him from a young age with his Stoic principles. Later in life, he wrote Letters from a Stoic, detailing these principles in full. Seneca’s letters read like a diary or a handbook of philosophical meditations. Often beginning with observations on daily life, the letters focus on many traditional themes of Stoic philosophy, such as the contempt of death, the value of friendship, and virtue as the supreme good.

Minerve ou de la sagesse d'Alain est une exploration profonde de la pensée humaine et de la sagesse, présentée dans le cadre de la collection « Les classiques » des éditions Vivat. Ce livre, qui s'inscrit dans une démarche éco-responsable et accessible, propose une réflexion sur la complexité de la pensée et l'importance de son adaptation à l'action. À travers ses chapitres, Alain invite le lecteur à embrasser le doute et à ajuster ses idées face aux résistances du monde, soulignant que la véritable sagesse réside dans cette capacité d'adaptation.

The Critique of Practical Reason was published in 1788, seven years after Immanuel Kant's major work, Critique of Pure Reason. In it, Kant sets out his moral philosophy - and it proved a seminal text in the history of the subject. He argues that the summum bonum (the highest good) of life is that rather than just pursuing happiness, people should inhabit a moral dimension that enables them to deserve the happiness that God can give. Though much shorter than Critique of Pure Reason, this is the sourcebook for Kant’s ethical doctrines. 

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?

When we’re moving at 115 MPH, we rarely see the wall coming. But it comes for all of us and when it does, we grasp for lessons, for meaning, for purpose. Each moment (good or bad) and each win or loss, provides us an opportunity to learn, and if we choose to take it, that opportunity can change our lives - and the world - for the better. The human spirit craves connection. Authenticity. Belonging. Touch. Gratitude. Purpose. We need to make our interactions count.

Artificial intelligence is, as the name suggests, artificial and fundamentally different to human intelligence. Yet often the goal of AI is to fake human intelligence. This deceit has been there from the very beginning. We’ve been trying to fake it since Alan Turing answered the question ‘Can machines think?’ by proposing that machines pretend to be humans. Now we are starting to build AI that truly deceives us. Powerful AIs such as ChatGPT can convince us they are intelligent and blur the distinction between what is real and what is simulated.

Seneca (1 – 65 n. Chr.) war mehr als nur ein Philosoph: er war Staatsmann und Erzieher des despotischen Kaisers Nero. Wenn Seneca, Hauptvertreter der Denkrichtung der Stoa, praktische Lebenstipps erteilt, weiß er genau, wovon er spricht. Seneca weiß: ein gutes, glückliches und sinnvolles Leben ist möglich. Hier enthalten: Vom glücklichen Leben, Von der Kürze des Lebens, Von der Gemütsruhe, Vom Zorn.

In this new revised edition of his groundbreaking work, Professor J. Budziszewski questions the modern assumption that moral truths are unknowable. With clear and logical arguments he rehabilitates the natural law tradition and restores confidence in a moral code based upon human nature. What We Can't Not Know explains the rational foundation of what we all really know to be right and wrong and shows how that foundation has been kicked out from under western society.

In the wake of two foiled assassination attempts while Donald Trump was campaigning for President, many of his supporters claimed Trump's survival was an act of Divine intervention, and a sign that Trump was favored by God. In his victory speech, Trump alluded to this. But his survival prompts other questions: Why did God spare Trump, but not the retiree sitting behind him? Why couldn't God have spared everyone that day? And if God is truly omnipotent, why do so many children die in gun violence every year?

“Useful Not True” is about reframing. Success in anything starts with your perspective which affects your strategy — your actions. Your first thought (“this is a disaster”) feels true, but it’s not the only perspective. Your first thought is an obstacle you need to get past by realizing no thoughts are necessarily true. After your initial impulse, consider other perspectives, then choose the thought that’s more useful to you — the one that makes you take effective actions. People share perspectives, not facts. They tell you how they see things.

There is a sign on a wall at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, mounted above a narrow shelf. The sign bears the universal symbol for Deaf access. The shelf once held a TTY, a text telephone that gave Deaf people their first access to instantaneous distance communication. The TTY is gone. The smartphone replaced it. The sign is still there, pointing to something that no longer exists. That empty shelf is the governing image of this book, because the pattern it represents is the story of every technology Western civilization has worshipped for the past century. Something arrives.

An exploration of everything Kant's philosophy can teach us about being the best people we can be, from using our human reasoning to its fullest potential to being affably drunk at dinner parties.

Where do you get your values and sensibilities from? If you grew up in a Western democracy, the answer is probably liberalism. Conservatives are right about one thing: liberalism is the ideology of our times, as omnipresent as religion once was. Yet, as Alexandre Lefebvre argues in Liberalism as a Way of Life, many of us are liberal without fully realizing it—or grasping what it means.

Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers, and readers throughout the centuries.