"We have reduced all virtues to one: being nice. And, we measure Jesus by our standard instead of measuring our standard by Him." For the Christian, explains author Peter Kreeft, being virtuous is not a means to the end of pleasure, comfort and happiness. Virtue, he reminds us, is a word that means "manly strength." But how do we know when we are being meek--or just cowardly? When is our anger righteous--and when is it a sin? What is the difference between being virtuous--and merely ethical? Back to Virtue clears up these and countless other questions that beset Christians today. Kreeft not only summarizes scriptural and theological wisdom on leading a holy life, he contrasts Christian virtue with other ethical systems. He applies traditional moral theology to present-day dilemmas such as abortion and nuclear armament. Kreeft restores to us what was once common knowledge: the Seven Deadly Sins have an antidote in the Beatitudes. By setting up a close contrast between the two sets of behaviors, Kreeft offers proven guidance in the often bewildering process of discerning right from wrong as we move into the questionable mores of the twenty-first century. He provides a road map of virtue, a map for our earthly pilgrimage synthesized from the accumulated wisdom of centuries of Christians, from Paul and the early Church Fathers through C.S. Lewis.

What is the role of ethics in American foreign policy? The Trump Administration has elevated this from a theoretical question to front-page news. Should ethics even play a role, or should we only focus on defending our material interests? In Do Morals Matter? Joseph S. Nye provides a concise yet penetrating analysis of how modern American presidents have-and have not-incorporated ethics into their foreign policy. Nye examines each presidency during theAmerican era post-1945 and scores them on the success they achieved in implementing an ethical foreign policy. Alongside this, he evaluates their leadership qualities, explaining which approaches work and which ones do not.

This book offers an innovative approach to moral enhancement. We, as humans, have a moral duty to be as good as we can be. Hence, moral bio-enhancement (MBE), if effective and safe, is our moral duty. However, it has to be voluntary because if it is made compulsory, human freedom (of the will) would be curtailed. As freedom (of the will) is an essential component of humanness, compulsory MBE would infringe upon our humanness. An essential question is; what will motivate humans to subject themselves voluntarily to MBE?The book argues - and supports by using empirical/experimental evidence - that morality and happiness operate in a circularly supportive relationship that applies to most humans most of the time: the better they are, the happier they will be; the happier they are, the better they will be. Hence, the grounding rationale for MBE ought not to be the prevention of “ultimate harm” based on compulsory MBE (as argued by Persson and Savulescu), but human happiness based on voluntary MBE. The primary objective of the book is to provide the readers with an original view on moral enhancement, whilst proposing a novel conception of moral enhancement that is informed by new biotechnological developments.

'Vital reading' - THE TIMES 'Brilliantly unillusioned thinking... It could hardly be more necessary in these all-too-moralistic times' - James Marriott, THE TIMES Morals have held empires together, kept soldiers marching under fire, fed the hungry, passed laws, built walls, welcomed immigrants, destroyed careers and governed our sex lives. But what if morality's all meaningless rubbish, a malfunctioning relic of our evolutionary past? This is the provocative argument that Chris Paley makes. This isn't an attack on one set of moral codes or one way of thinking about ethics: it's a call for abolishing the whole caboodle. He uses evolutionary psychology to show how and why morality emerged: they enabled our forebears to survive and prosper in tribal groups. Today, our morals constrain us, bias us, and push us in the wrong direction. The biggest challenges our species faces, whether global warming, nuclear proliferation or the rise of the robots, are pan-human. These challenges are beyond what our moral minds were designed to cope with. You can't build smartphones with stone-age axes, and you can't solve modern humanity's problems with tools that are designed to create primitive, competitive groups. From Chris Paley, author of the 'extraordinary', 'startling' and 'thought-provoking' Unthink, comes Beyond Bad, which shows morals hinder us from achieving what we want to achieve. Beyond Bad is the book that 'does for morals what Dawkins did for God'.

Bryan W. Van Norden lambastes academic philosophy for its Eurocentrism and insularity and challenges educational institutions to live up to their cosmopolitan ideals. Taking Back Philosophy is at once a manifesto for multicultural education, an accessible introduction to Confucian and Buddhist philosophy, and a defense of the value of philosophy.

This book argues that there is no morality and that people are not morally responsible for what they do. In particular, it argues that what people do is neither right nor wrong and that they are neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy for doing it. Morality and moral responsibility lie at the heart of how we view the world. In our daily life, we feel that people act rightly or wrongly, make the world better or worse, and are virtuous or vicious. These policies are central to our justifying how we see the world and treat others. In this book, the author argues that our views on these matters are false. He presents a series of arguments that threaten to undermine our theoretical and practical worldviews. The philosophical costs of denying moral responsibility and morality are enormous. It does violence to philosophical positions that many people took a lifetime to develop. Worse, it does violence to our everyday view of people. A host of concepts that we rely on daily (praiseworthy, blameworthy, desert, virtue, right, wrong, good, bad, etc.) fail to refer to any property in the world and are thus deeply mistaken. This book is of interest to philosophers, lawyers, and humanities professors as well as people interested in morality, law, religion, and public policy.

Looking beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary social interactions, The Moral Power of Money investigates the forces of power and morality at play, particularly among the poor. Drawing on fieldwork in a slum of Buenos Aires, Ariel Wilkis argues that money is a critical symbol used to negotiate not only material possessions, but also the political, economic, class, gender, and generational bonds between people. Through vivid accounts of the stark realities of life in Villa Olimpia, Wilkis highlights the interplay of money, morality, and power. Drawing out the theoretical implications of these stories, he proposes a new concept of moral capital based on different kinds, or "pieces," of money. Each chapter covers a different "piece"—money earned from the informal and illegal economies, money lent through family and market relations, money donated with conditional cash transfers, political money that binds politicians and their supporters, sacrificed money offered to the church, and safeguarded money used to support people facing hardships. This book builds an original theory of the moral sociology of money, providing the tools for understanding the role money plays in social life today.