Most of us want to make a difference. We donate our time and money to charities and causes we deem worthy, choose careers we consider meaningful, and patronize businesses and buy products we believe make the world a better place. Unfortunately, we often base these decisions on assumptions and emotions rather than facts. As a result, even our best intentions often lead to ineffective—and sometimes downright harmful—outcomes. How can we do better?While a researcher at Oxford, trying ...

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Very often we're uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do. We don't know how to weigh the interests of animals against humans, how strong our duties are to improve the lives of distant strangers, or how to think about the ethics of bringing new people into exist...

In this instant New York Times bestseller, a renowned philosopher puts forth the case for longtermismThe fate of the world – and the future – is in our hands. Now with a new foreword, What We Owe the Future argues for longtermism: that positively influencing the distant future is our time’s key moral priority. It’s not enough to reverse climate change or avert a pandemic. We must ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed; counter the ...

An Oxford philosopher makes the case for “longtermism”—that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our timeThe fate of the world is in our hands. Humanity’s written history spans only five thousand years. Our yet-unwritten future could last for millions more—or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today.In Wha...

Most of us want to make a difference. We donate our time and money to charities and causes we deem worthy, choose careers we consider meaningful, and patronize businesses and buy products we believe make the world a better place. Unfortunately, we often base these decisions on assumptions and emotions rather than facts. As a result, even our best intentions often lead to ineffective—and sometimes downright harmful—outcomes. How can we do better?While a researcher at Oxford, trying ...

A brilliant philosopher reimagines Stoicism for our modern age in this thought-provoking guide to a better life.For more than two thousand years, Stoicism has offered a message of resilience in the face of hardship. Little wonder, then, that it is having such a revival in our own troubled times. But there is no denying how weird it can be: Is it really the case that we shouldn't care about our work, our loved ones, or our own lives? According to the old Stoics, yes...

**A brilliant philosopher reimagines Stoicism for our modern age in this thought-provoking guide to a better life.“A bold, contemporary updating of Stoicism for the present day.” ―John Sellars, author of Stoicism**How do we find joy and meaning in our lives when everything we care about can be destroyed in an instant?Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci found the answer in ancient Stoicism, and in A Field Guide to a Happy Life, he offers a new rendition of this ph...

**An invaluable guide to understanding how the internet has broken our brains—and what we can do to fix it."Vivid and unforgettable.” ―Jonathan Haidt, New York Times bestselling author of The Righteous Mind**The original internet was not designed to make us upset, distracted, confused, and outraged. But something unexpected happened at the turn of the last decade, when a handful of small features were quietly launched at social media companies with little ...

A collection of essays by fifteen philosophers presenting a thoughtful, introductory guide to choosing a philosophy for living an examined and meaningful life.Socrates famously said "the unexamined life is not worth living," but what does it mean to truly live philosophically?This thought-provoking, wide-ranging collection brings together essays by fifteen leading philosophers reflecting on what it means to live according to a philosophy of life. From Easte...

LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • “An easy-to-follow road map for creating day-to-day inner peace in today’s increasingly complex world.”—Lori Gottlieb, MFT, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to SomeoneThroughout history, people have sought the heights of human potential—to become as wise and strong, happy and loving, as any person can ever be. And now recent science is revealing how these remarkable ways of being ar...

Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the country-wide famine escalated.By the time she was eleven years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun was in danger of the same. Finally, her mother decided to escape North Korea wi...

Early life is all about trial-and-error practice. If wed given up in the face of failure, repetition, and difficulty, wed never have learned to walk, tie our shoes, or ride a bike. So why, as adults, do we often throw in the towel when at first we dont succeed? Modern lifes technological speed, habitual multitasking, and promises of instant gratification dont help. But in his study of how we learn (prompted by his experiences as a musician and adult newbie golfer), Thomas Sterner has found...