Much of modern economic theory is based on a rather unflattering view of human nature, one that is essentially selfish and materialistic. Not surprisingly, this incomplete version of human anthropology makes for some rather incomplete economic theory, argues Edward Hadas in Human Goods & Economic Evils. Instead of simply being utility maximizers, Hadas argues human beings also seek to maximize morality in their everyday economic lives. For Hadas, economic man is moral man, who always strives for the good according to his nature. While the weakness of human nature ensures that the good is never fully achieved, economic activity is nevertheless best understood as part of the great moral enterprise of humanity. Human Goods & Economic Evils does not claim that the basic economic activities of laboring and consuming are the most important things in life, but they are literally vital, and as such deserve to be studied and understood through a more morally sympathetic view of human nature. With this in mind, Human Goods & Economic Evils provides both lay readers and policymakers the intellectual tools necessary to judge what is right and what is wrong about the modern economy, and returns the study of economics to its proper, more humanistic sphere.

Tomas Sedlacek has shaken the study of economics as few ever have. Named one of the "Young Guns" and one of the "five hot minds in economics" by the Yale Economic Review, he serves on the National Economic Council in Prague, where his provocative writing has achieved bestseller status. How has he done it? By arguing a simple, almost heretical proposition: economics is ultimately about good and evil. In The Economics of Good and Evil, Sedlacek radically rethinks his field, challenging our assumptions about the world. Economics is touted as a science, a value-free mathematical inquiry, he writes, but it's actually a cultural phenomenon, a product of our civilization. It began within philosophy--Adam Smith himself not only wrote The Wealth of Nations, but also The Theory of Moral Sentiments--and economics, as Sedlacek shows, is woven out of history, myth, religion, and ethics. "Even the most sophisticated mathematical model," Sedlacek writes, "is, de facto, a story, a parable, our effort to (rationally) grasp the world around us." Economics not only describes the world, but establishes normative standards, identifying ideal conditions. Science, he claims, is a system of beliefs to which we are committed. To grasp the beliefs underlying economics, he breaks out of the field's confines with a tour de force exploration of economic thinking, broadly defined, over the millennia. He ranges from the epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament to the emergence of Christianity, from Descartes and Adam Smith to the consumerism in Fight Club. Throughout, he asks searching meta-economic questions: What is the meaning and the point of economics? Can we do ethically all that we can do technically? Does it pay to be good? Placing the wisdom of philosophers and poets over strict mathematical models of human behavior, Sedlacek's groundbreaking work promises to change the way we calculate economic value.

Over the course of modern history, finance, the fuel of capitalism, has had both positive and negative impacts on humanity. Necessary Evil is a penetrating investigation of how our economic system affects human rights progress, this will be an essential read for anyone interested in how to make the global capitalist system more responsible and progressive.

Reorienting Christian ethics from its usual anthropocentrism to an ecocentrism entails a new framework that Moe-Lobeda lays out in her first chapters, culminating in a creative rethinking of how it is that we understand morally.

"An effective integration of ethics, morality and business practices including extensive discussions of social justice, animal rights and the environment the author elucidates the many layers of the managerial and corporate environment, deftly analyzing the fiduciary, social and moral relationships between the players in a corporation. A fresh, convincing ethical examination." -Kirkus Discoveries Being good is not good enough to be moral. In Do No Evil, Michael Berumen debunks the notions that moral judgments are subjective preferences and that there are no universal standards of morality. He analyzes leading normative theories and gives biographical highlights on several important philosophers. Berumen then sets forth his own theory: the only basis for universal morality is the avoidance of death and suffering, in contrast to conventional conceptions of promoting good, which he shows cannot form a basis for universal rules of conduct. Berumen then examines the concepts of property, exchange, competition, and inequality, and shows why capitalism occupies the default position of morality, and why socialism is problematic. With that said, he also explains why property rights are not unlimited, and how morality serves to constrain capitalist acts. The last part of the book deals with business-related topics. Berumen demonstrates that a business is property and not primarily an instrument for delivering social justice, and he covers such areas as governance, fiduciary responsibility, marketing, globalism, the environment, duties to animals, and moral courage.

From bestselling author Michael Shermer, an investigation of the evolution of morality that is "a paragon of popularized science and philosophy" The Sun (Baltimore) A century and a half after Darwin first proposed an "evolutionary ethics," science has begun to tackle the roots of morality. Just as evolutionary biologists study why we are hungry (to motivate us to eat) or why sex is enjoyable (to motivate us to procreate), they are now searching for the very nature of humanity. In The Science of Good and Evil, science historian Michael Shermer explores how humans evolved from social primates to moral primates; how and why morality motivates the human animal; and how the foundation of moral principles can be built upon empirical evidence. Along the way he explains the implications of scientific findings for fate and free will, the existence of pure good and pure evil, and the development of early moral sentiments among the first humans. As he closes the divide between science and morality, Shermer draws on stories from the Yanamamö, infamously known as the "fierce people" of the tropical rain forest, to the Stanford studies on jailers' behavior in prisons. The Science of Good and Evil is ultimately a profound look at the moral animal, belief, and the scientific pursuit of truth.

Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.