Ethics Society

Peter Singer is often described as the world's most influential philosopher. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words. In this book of brief essays, he applies his controversial ways of thinking to issues like climate change, extreme poverty, animals, abortion, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, the ethics of high-priced art, and ways of increasing happiness.

Business has a bad name for many people. It is easy to point to unethical and damaging behavior by companies. And it may seem straightforward to blame either individuals or, more generally, ruthless markets and amoral commercial society. In Honorable Business, James R. Otteson argues that business activity can be valuable in itself. Done correctly, honorable business can enable flourishing for individuals and prosperity for society.

Power, Belief, and Society: Understanding the Enduring Ideas of Max Weber offers an in-depth exploration of one of the most influential thinkers in sociology, politics, and economics. Max Weber’s work continues to shape how we understand authority, religion, bureaucracy, and the rational structures of the modern world. This book brings Weber’s complex ideas to life in clear, accessible language, connecting his theories to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Inside, readers will discover Weber’s analysis of the Protestant ethic and its connection to capitalism, his famous ...

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.

Artificial intelligence powers Google's search engine, enables Facebook to target advertising, and allows Alexa and Siri to do their jobs. AI is also behind self-driving cars, predictive policing, and autonomous weapons that can kill without human intervention. These and other AI applications raise complex ethical issues that are the subject of ongoing debate. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an accessible synthesis of these issues.

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Today, these trends have reached their extreme—but in...

Merchants of Doubt has been praised—and attacked—around the world, for reasons easy to understand. This book tells, with “brutal clarity” (Huffington Post), the disquieting story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades.

The book is one of the most influential ethical treatises of all time. Written in 350 BC, it identifies happiness as life's goal. How do we achieve this goal? Not through the satisfactions that come from pleasure, wealth, or fame. According to Aristotle, the true path to happiness lies in contemplation of philosophic truth. This is the only action through which humans can exercise their distinctively unique trait: the ability to reason.

Contains the complete text of Albert Pikes never-before-published esoteric study of the symbols of Blue Lodge Degrees. Subjects include "The Compasses and the Square", "The Weapons and Blows of the Assassins", "The Three Grips", "The Substitute for the Masters Word", "The 47th Problem of Euclid", "The Truth", "Is the Cable-tow a Symbol?", "Corner Stones", "The Ladder of Jacob", "Tubal Cain", "Shibboleth", and "Solomon and Hiram".

In this fascinating book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant–better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise decisions, even predicting the future...

The Craftsman explores the relation between the hand and the head. Richard Sennett argues that working with physical things stimulates people to think. Craftsmanship, says Sennett, names the basic human impulse to do a job well for its own sake, and good craftsmanship involves developing skills and focusing on the work rather than ourselves. The computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen all engage in a craftsman's work. In this thought-provoking book, Sennett explores the work of craftsmen past and present.

Just because we can do something, does that mean we should do it? While embracing the promise of technological advances and data-driven decision-making, a democratic society also must acknowledge and address potential harms to individuals, populations, and society as a whole. In this data ethics “playbook,” data governance practitioner and educator Kathy Rondon lays out potential problems in our collection, sharing, use, and retention of data; how those problems can negatively impact more than just an individual person’s privacy; and the questions we should be asking of ourselves and ...

Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship of two towering Enlightenment thinkers that had great consequences for modern thought. David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime, he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism.

Natural Law and Human Order: Exploring the Enduring Philosophy of Justice, Morality, and Society takes readers on a journey through one of the most influential ideas in human history. From the ancient Greeks and Romans to Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, and modern legal theorists, natural law has shaped how we think about justice, morality, rights, and the role of government. This book unpacks the evolution of natural law across centuries, showing how it informed revolutions, legal systems, and human rights frameworks that continue to guide our world today. Accessible yet deeply researched, ...

A existential continuation of the philosophical thought of Albert Camus in his "Myth of Sisyphus" from the perspective of acceptance of nihilism as the only sound and valid morality available in Technological Society. Whereas the work of Camus and the work of most existential thought tries to avoid nihilism, this author accepts it and argues Acceptance of it as a means for the individual soul to find value in Technological Society. This work contains several essays dealing with meaning in life, truth, and morality existentially, conceptually, and pragmatically for solving conceptual ...

Civilization is often described as humanity’s triumph over violence. Yet much of what modern life depends upon still requires harm—often hidden, procedural, or framed as unavoidable. Civilization as the Gradual Refusal of Violence proposes a different way of understanding moral progress. Rather than treating civilization as a finished state or a set of institutions, it frames civilization as a direction of travel: a slow, uneven movement away from killing, coercion, and domination as default tools for solving problems. Drawing on history, ethics, and systems thinking, the book traces a ...

"AI Ethics" offers a comprehensive exploration of the moral principles that should guide the development and deployment of artificial intelligence technologies. The book addresses the urgent need to ensure these technologies are aligned with ethical standards in an era where AI systems are becoming increasingly integrated into various aspects of society. This book provides a roadmap for understanding how AI can be innovative and ethical by examining the foundational ethical frameworks.

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER * ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE SUMMER * An NPR and Time Best Book of the Year * Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (Canada) * Finalist for CALIBA’s Golden Poppy Awards A successful art dealer confesses the story of his meteoric rise in this...

Environmental Thought and Ecological Philosophy: Deep Explorations of Humanity’s Relationship with Nature BOOK 2: The Web of Life: Ecological Thinking, Systems Theory, and the Interconnected Nature of Reality explores one of the most important intellectual shifts of the modern age: the movement from seeing the world as a collection of isolated parts to understanding it as a dynamic web of relationships. Drawing on ecology, systems theory, and environmental philosophy, this book reveals how life, society, and the natural world are shaped by interdependence, feedback, and complexity. Rather...

“No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.” —H. L. Mencken H. L. Mencken was wrong. In this endlessly fascinating book, New Yorker columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively simple...