Moral Essays

David Hume (1711-1776) remains a major figure in British philosophy, particularly for two or three works, including A Treatise on Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. But he was also a prolific essayist and historian. During his lifetime Essays Moral, Political and...

These four poems, which deal with ethical issues, were collated and published in 1751 by William Warburton, seven years after Pope's death.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), 1st Viscount St Albans, Attorney General and then Lord Chancellor of England, was an immensely learned, clever and ambitious man, with considerable political influence during the later years of Queen Elizabeth I and through almost two decades of the reign of her...

In On the Genealogy of Morals, subtitled "A Polemic", Nietzsche furthers his pursuit of a clarity that is less tainted by imposed prejudices. He looks at the way attitudes towards 'morality' evolved and the way congenital ideas of morality were heavily colored by the Judaic and Christian traditions.

An essay concerning the final part of Friedrich Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of morals". What does he mean by "man would rather will nothingness than not will"?

“A witty, learned, authoritative survey of philosophical thought.” —The New York Times Book Review The first authoritative and accessible single-volume history of philosophy to cover both Western and Eastern traditions, from one of the world’s most eminent thinkers The story of...

For fans of Everything Is F*cked and Against Purity: Living Ethically in Compromised Times, a book about facing the multiple crises of modernity--and hospicing modernity--with maturity, humility, and integrity. This book is not easy: it contains no quick-fix plan for a better, brighter tomorrow...

Aman a sus hijos, pero se arrepienten de ser madres. #madresarrepentidas es un tratado de pensamiento radical que no dejará indiferente a nadie. En este ensayo controvertido, tan minucioso como iluminador, la socióloga Orna Donath examina la dimensión del tabú, desactiva los dictados sociales y deja que sean las propias madres quienes hablen de sus experiencias. Así, #madresarrepentidas se erige como un nuevo e imprescindible manifiesto feminista, llamado a romper barreras.

Why Must We Suffer? “If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?” And what about the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle these knotty issues. With his...

A tribute to a great man, an important and interesting writer, an inspiring teacher, and a friend some will not likely find again. Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper wrote a memorable biography about their pal, C.S. Lewis. "...We have sought to tell his story as best we could, to lay before...

In Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction outing, an examination of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life through an insightful, unsparing argument that proves the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination but instead are found in reality. "There is a signature motif discernible in...

The lives and crises of Norman Morrison and Robert McNamara are offered as exemplars of the moral conflict and moral idealism of the Sixties. Morrison, as a celebrated martyr to the war, and McNamara, as a vilified perpetrator of the war, are by these facts or legends alone remarkable to history. They are symbolic for the tortured memory as that war resides within the American cultural conscience; how they show this war for a unique misery of moral conflict. Morrison, as the Quaker, or as a hypersensitive neurotic, may have been the extremity of this hypostatic moral idealism; perhaps he ...

Sex and gender are among the most controversial topics of our time—but human confusion about desire, identity, and the body is nothing new. The Bible acknowledged this struggle long before our modern debates. In Sex, Gender, and the Bible: A Need to Know Essay, C. W. Steinle offers a clear, compassionate, and deeply grounded exploration of what Scripture actually says about human sexuality. With pastoral sensitivity and historical insight, this essay addresses some of the most pressing questions facing Christians today: Why did God create humanity male and female? Why do our desires so ...

The autobiographical essays in The Girls in My Town create an unforgettable portrait of a family in Los Angeles. Reaching back to her grandmother's childhood and navigating through her own girlhood and on to the present, Angela Morales contemplates moments of loss and longing, truth and beauty, motherhood and daughterhood. 

The essays in this fascinating volume examine present-day psychological and cultural problems with the keen insight and humanistic sympathies characteristic of Erich Fromm's work. The Dogma of Christ provides some of the sharpest critical insights into how the contemporary world of human destructiveness and violence can no longer separate religion, psychology, and politics. The book brilliantly summarizes Fromm's ideas on how culture and society shape our behavior.

A meditation on how lives endure through the things they leave behind: letters never sent, portraits fading in their frames, and the quiet eloquence of remembrance. Letters and Objects: Essays on Memory, Objects, and the Margins of History In an age captivated by progress, the nineteenth century turned instead toward remembrance. Through its letters, keepsakes, and portraits, it sought to preserve the fragile substance of feeling, to rescue the self from silence. Letters and Objects opens The Library of Quiet Things, a series devoted to the moral imagination of history and to the tender ...

An inflammatory essay on WHY America is in decline, along with the author's suggestions for fixing it. From the author: This is my first sojourn into commentary and it comes as a result of observing human behavior in the medical system and elsewhere. The piece is as controversial as it is correct and I expect ramifications from its publication. In the end, I hope it changes the views of the public, setting America on a course toward success rather than the downward spiral we're currently on. Warning: This work discusses abortion, among other topics.

What does it mean to feel rightly and to live well because of it? In Fool for Sentiment, David Vega explores the moral life not through abstract rules, but through the quiet, powerful force of human feeling. Drawing inspiration from Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, this book examines empathy, conscience, and the inner dialogue that shapes our character. It challenges the modern tendency to dismiss feeling as weakness, revealing instead that our capacity to feel with others is the very foundation of moral judgment. Through a series of reflections, Vega invites readers to ...

Introduction Published in 1928, On Happiness gathers a selection of Propos—brief philosophical essays originally written by Émile Chartier, known as Alain, for the newspaper La Dépêche de Rouen. These meditations, born from everyday life and addressed to ordinary people, form one of the most luminous and accessible works of modern French thought. A direct heir of Montaigne and a disciple of Descartes, Alain sought in clarity of reason and in the discipline of will the foundation of an art of living. Against pessimism and morbid abstractions, he proposes a philosophy of attention and of...

Bloomsbury presents Faith in the Public Square by Rowan Williams read by Niall Lucas Rowan Williams on critical contemporary issues in his final book as Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Rowan Williams is the most gifted Anglican priest of his generation. His views are consistent and orthodox...