In looking at the behavior of the "me-generation" the author acknowledges the occurence of selfless acts and argues that looking out for number one may require looking out for others too

In this book, I make use of an idea from economics to suggest how noble human tendencies might not only have survived the ruthless pressures of the material world, but actually have been nurtured by them.

Passion and Reason describes how readers can interpret what lies behind their own emotions and those of their families, friends, and co-workers, and provides useful ideas about how to manage our emotions more effectively.

In an unorthodox approach, Georgetown University professor Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice, and sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving their careers. Not only are pre-existing passions rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work, but a focus on passion over skill can be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers. Cal reveals that matching your job to a pre-existing passion does not matter. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it. With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love, and will change the way you think about careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.

Is money the major factor in shaping the marketplace? Is salary the prime consideration in job satisfaction? Not necessarily, according to Robert Frank. Economists, Frank charges, have refused to treat people as people, and consequently they have painted a distorted picture of the marketplace. Economists have too often neglected fundamental elements of human nature and therefore have failed to ask many obviously important questions and have offered wrong or at best misleading answers to the questions they do ask. This challenging and provocative book offers an alternative to the prevailing view of human beings as economic automatons. Individual desires--notably the quest for status--profoundly affect the marketplace. "Status concerns play dominant roles in many of the most important private transactions and underlie much of the regulatory apparatus we observe in the modern welfare state," Frank writes. The book offers a radical reinterpretation of what private markets can and cannot do and suggests new ways of looking at familiar regulations and social programs. Many of the issues discussed touch directly upon the strongest concerns we feel as human beings struggling to define our roles and affirm our importance in the world around us. About the Author: Robert H. Frank is Associate Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He is the co-author (with Richard Freeman) of The Distributional Consequences of Direct Foreign Investment.

Mark Schroeder presents an original theory of reasons for action. This theory is broadly Humean, in holding that reasons for action are instrumental, or explained by desires. Slaves of the Passions will be essential reading for anyone interested in metaethics, practical reason, or explanatory moral theory.

Today there is a thriving 'emotions industry' to which philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists are contributing. Yet until two centuries ago 'the emotions' did not exist. In this path-breaking study Thomas Dixon shows how, during the nineteenth century, the emotions came into being as a distinct psychological category, replacing existing categories such as appetites, passions, sentiments and affections. By examining medieval and eighteenth-century theological psychologies and placing Charles Darwin and William James within a broader and more complex nineteenth-century setting, Thomas Dixon argues that this domination by one single descriptive category is not healthy. Overinclusivity of 'the emotions' hampers attempts to argue with any subtlety about the enormous range of mental states and stances of which humans are capable. This book is an important contribution to the debate about emotion and rationality which has preoccupied western thinkers throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and has implications for contemporary debates.