The foundation for a general system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark in the history of moral and political thought. Readers familiar with Adam Smith from The Wealth of Nations will find this earlier book a revelation. Although the author is often misrepresented as a calculating rationalist who advises the pursuit of self-interest in the marketplace, regardless of the human cost, he was also interested in the human capacity for benevolence -...

First published in 1751, "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals" by David Hume, the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, was the enquiry subsequent to his 1748 work "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding" and is often referred to as "the second Enquiry". In Hume's own opinion it was the very best of all his writings. In "An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals", Hume expands upon his ideas of morality first discussed in his earlier...

"Ethics" is the most famous work of Benedict de Spinoza, who is considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. Spinoza was born of Jewish and Portuguese ancestry in 1632 and lived a simple life in Amsterdam as an optical lens grinder. His greatest fame came about when "Ethics," a collection of several of his philosophical works, was published anonymously by his close friends in 1677 shortly after Spinoza's untimely death at age...

What is morally permissible, and what is morally obligatory? These questions form the core of a vast amount of philosophical reasoning. In his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant developed a basis for the answers. In this landmark work, the German philosopher asks what sort of maxim might function as a guide to appropriate action under a given set of circumstances. By universalizing such a maxim, would morally permissible...

Persuasive and humane, this classic of philosophy represents one of the nineteenth century's most significant treatises on ethics. The Basis of Morality offers Schopenhauer's fullest examination of traditional ethical themes, and it articulates a descriptive form of ethics that contradicts the rationally based prescriptive theories. Starting with his polemic against Kant's ethics of duty, Schopenhauer anticipates the latter-day critics of moral philosophy....

Torture in Abu Ghraib prison. Corporate fraud. Falsified records at Veterans Administration hospitals. Teachers pressured to feed test answers to students. These scandals could have been prevented if, early on, people had said no to their higher-ups. Ira Chaleff discusses when and how to disobey inappropriate orders, reduce unacceptable risk, and find better ways to achieve legitimate goals. He delves into the psychological dynamics of obedience,...

What's stopping you from realising your ambitions' What kind of successful person do you want to be' If you think being ambitious is a negative trait, it's time to think again. Real Ambition will help you understand why some people achieve their ambitions and exactly what is getting in the way of yours. We will give you a clue - it's YOU! Packed full of scientific evidence and cutting edge global research Real Ambition offers five simple secrets to...

Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation {which accounts for it} that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but {consists in the fact} that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity,...

Philosophical Fragments is a Christian philosophical work written by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1844. It was the first of three works written under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, the other two were De omnibus dubitandum est, 1841 and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, 1846.