Author: Ian Morris
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691175896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human values Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood.
Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels
Author: Ian Morris
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691175896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human values Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691175896
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
The best-selling author of Why the West Rules—for Now examines the evolution and future of human values Most people in the world today think democracy and gender equality are good, and that violence and wealth inequality are bad. But most people who lived during the 10,000 years before the nineteenth century thought just the opposite. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, biology, and history, Ian Morris explains why. Fundamental long-term changes in values, Morris argues, are driven by the most basic force of all: energy. Humans have found three main ways to get the energy they need—from foraging, farming, and fossil fuels. Each energy source sets strict limits on what kinds of societies can succeed, and each kind of society rewards specific values. But if our fossil-fuel world favors democratic, open societies, the ongoing revolution in energy capture means that our most cherished values are very likely to turn out not to be useful any more. Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels offers a compelling new argument about the evolution of human values, one that has far-reaching implications for how we understand the past—and for what might happen next. Originating as the Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University, the book includes challenging responses by classicist Richard Seaford, historian of China Jonathan Spence, philosopher Christine Korsgaard, and novelist Margaret Atwood.
Evolution and Human Values
Author: Robert Wesson
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789051838305
Category : Ethics, Evolutionary
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Initiated by Robert Wesson, Evolution and Human Values is a collection of newly written essays designed to bring interdisciplinary insight to that area of thought where human evolution intersects with human values. The disciplines brought to bear on the subject are diverse - philosophy, psychiatry, behavioral science, biology, anthropology, psychology, biochemistry, and sociology. Yet, as organized by co-editor Patricia A. Williams, the volume falls coherently into three related sections. Entitled Evolutionary Ethics, the first section brings contemporary research to an area first explored by Herbert Spencer. Evolutionary ethics looks to the theory of evolution by natural selection to find values for human living. The second section, Evolved Ethics, discusses the evolution of language and religion and their impact on moral thought and feeling. Evolved ethics was partly Charles Darwin's subject in The Descent of Man. The last section bears the title Scientific Ethics. A nascent field, scientific ethics asks about the evolution of human nature and the implications of that nature for ethical theory and social policy. Together, the essays collected here provide important contemporary insights into what it is - and what it may be - to be human.
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789051838305
Category : Ethics, Evolutionary
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
Initiated by Robert Wesson, Evolution and Human Values is a collection of newly written essays designed to bring interdisciplinary insight to that area of thought where human evolution intersects with human values. The disciplines brought to bear on the subject are diverse - philosophy, psychiatry, behavioral science, biology, anthropology, psychology, biochemistry, and sociology. Yet, as organized by co-editor Patricia A. Williams, the volume falls coherently into three related sections. Entitled Evolutionary Ethics, the first section brings contemporary research to an area first explored by Herbert Spencer. Evolutionary ethics looks to the theory of evolution by natural selection to find values for human living. The second section, Evolved Ethics, discusses the evolution of language and religion and their impact on moral thought and feeling. Evolved ethics was partly Charles Darwin's subject in The Descent of Man. The last section bears the title Scientific Ethics. A nascent field, scientific ethics asks about the evolution of human nature and the implications of that nature for ethical theory and social policy. Together, the essays collected here provide important contemporary insights into what it is - and what it may be - to be human.
The Human Agenda
Author: Roderic Gorney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 738
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 738
Book Description
Humanities
Author: Lee A. Jacobus
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 708
Book Description
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 708
Book Description
Neurobiology of Human Values
Author: Jean-Pierre P. Changeux
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540298037
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Man has been pondering for centuries over the basis of his own ethical and aesthetic values. Until recent times, such issues were primarily fed by the thinking of philosophers, moralists and theologists, or by the findings of historians or sociologists relating to universality or variations in these values within various populations. Science has avoided this field of investigation within the confines of philosophy. Beyond the temptation to stay away from the field of knowledge science may also have felt itself unconcerned by the study of human values for a simple heuristic reason, namely the lack of tools allowing objective study. For the same reason, researchers tended to avoid the study of feelings or consciousness until, over the past two decades, this became a focus of interest for many neuroscientists. It is apparent that many questions linked to research in the field of neuroscience are now arising. The hope is that this book will help to formulate them more clearly rather than skirting them. The authors do not wish to launch a new moral philosophy, but simply to gather objective knowledge for reflection.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540298037
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Book Description
Man has been pondering for centuries over the basis of his own ethical and aesthetic values. Until recent times, such issues were primarily fed by the thinking of philosophers, moralists and theologists, or by the findings of historians or sociologists relating to universality or variations in these values within various populations. Science has avoided this field of investigation within the confines of philosophy. Beyond the temptation to stay away from the field of knowledge science may also have felt itself unconcerned by the study of human values for a simple heuristic reason, namely the lack of tools allowing objective study. For the same reason, researchers tended to avoid the study of feelings or consciousness until, over the past two decades, this became a focus of interest for many neuroscientists. It is apparent that many questions linked to research in the field of neuroscience are now arising. The hope is that this book will help to formulate them more clearly rather than skirting them. The authors do not wish to launch a new moral philosophy, but simply to gather objective knowledge for reflection.
Human Values in a Changing World
Author: Bryan Wilson
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
In a spontaneously wide-ranging conversation one winter evening in Japan, sociologist of religion Bryan Wilson and Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda recognized the importance of explaining and learning about their respective worldviews. "Human Values in a Changing World" is the record of their further exchanges on how they see the religious response to the human condition. Their contrasting approaches - one, as an academic, and the other, as a lay Buddhist - allow for a constructive critique of preconceptions otherwise unexamined in their own cultural contexts."There is an intimate connection between faith and the fruits of commitment," Wilson says at one point. To which Ikeda responds that while the benefits of faith to momentary happiness are perhaps not the core value of a religion, they can inspire and lead people to become aware of that core value or fundamental truth. The two men's observations on the origins of religious sensibilities move from the spiritual and the moral to the politics of private and public life. Although published some years ago, "Human Values in a Changing World" addresses topics and issues which are of perennial importance to human flourishing, including: sexual morality, the limits of tolerance and religious freedom, the future of the family, the belief in an afterlife, and the idea of sin.
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
In a spontaneously wide-ranging conversation one winter evening in Japan, sociologist of religion Bryan Wilson and Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda recognized the importance of explaining and learning about their respective worldviews. "Human Values in a Changing World" is the record of their further exchanges on how they see the religious response to the human condition. Their contrasting approaches - one, as an academic, and the other, as a lay Buddhist - allow for a constructive critique of preconceptions otherwise unexamined in their own cultural contexts."There is an intimate connection between faith and the fruits of commitment," Wilson says at one point. To which Ikeda responds that while the benefits of faith to momentary happiness are perhaps not the core value of a religion, they can inspire and lead people to become aware of that core value or fundamental truth. The two men's observations on the origins of religious sensibilities move from the spiritual and the moral to the politics of private and public life. Although published some years ago, "Human Values in a Changing World" addresses topics and issues which are of perennial importance to human flourishing, including: sexual morality, the limits of tolerance and religious freedom, the future of the family, the belief in an afterlife, and the idea of sin.
The Philosophy of Human Evolution
Author: Michael Ruse
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521117933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
Provides a unique discussion of human evolution from a philosophical viewpoint, covering such issues as religion, race and gender.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521117933
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 283
Book Description
Provides a unique discussion of human evolution from a philosophical viewpoint, covering such issues as religion, race and gender.
Time, Conflict, and Human Values
Author: Julius Thomas Fraser
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252024764
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
"Over the course of history, Fraser argues, human values have served primarily not as conservative influences that promote permanence, continuity, and balance - as commonly believed - but as revolutionary forces that, in the long run, promote change by generating and sustaining certain unresolvable conflicts."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252024764
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
"Over the course of history, Fraser argues, human values have served primarily not as conservative influences that promote permanence, continuity, and balance - as commonly believed - but as revolutionary forces that, in the long run, promote change by generating and sustaining certain unresolvable conflicts."--BOOK JACKET.
Evolution and Ethics
Author: Philip Clayton
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802826954
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
Certain to engage scholars, students, and general readers alike, Evolution and Ethics offers a balanced, levelheaded, constructive approach to an often divisive debate.
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802826954
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
Certain to engage scholars, students, and general readers alike, Evolution and Ethics offers a balanced, levelheaded, constructive approach to an often divisive debate.
A New Reality
Author: Jonas Salk
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 194795105X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future provides a startling, fresh new message of understanding, perspective and hope for today’s tense, rapid-fire, kaleidoscopically changing world. A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future provides a startling, fresh new message of understanding, perspective and hope for today’s tense, rapid-fire, kaleidoscopically changing world. Drawn from the writings of visionary scientist Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, extended and developed by his son Jonathan, the message of the book explodes from the past and sheds light on tensions that besiege us and the currents of discord that are raging as these words are written. More importantly, it indicates a way forward out of our current situation. Written by a world-famous doctor and folk hero, based on population data, rich in visual imagery, elegantly designed, and clearly written, A New Reality is unique in the marketplace. Readable in one or two sittings, it is accessible to the general reader while at the same time being of essential value to policy makers and academics. Its brevity and simplicity of design belie the importance and sophistication of its message. “We are at a point in the course of human social evolution when the demands of survival converge with the higher ideals of humankind and the well-being and flourishing of human society. It is up to us to see that we navigate this transition, adapting to and emerging in a new reality.” —A New Reality Our country is divided and polarized. Terrorism is a major threat throughout much of the world. Mass migrations are causing national and international tension. Population growth continues to increase, especially in the developing regions of the world. Controversy rages as to the use of fossil fuels versus the development of alternative forms of energy. Disagreement continues about climate change. Opposing currents of opinion collide as to how much we should help other areas in the world and how much to help ourselves. Basic values are in conflict. More than 40 years ago, Jonas Salk understood that we are at a unique moment in the history of the human species. After centuries of increase, population growth has begun to slow and is trending toward equilibrium. This change is accompanied by an equally significant change in human values—a shift from those based on unlimited availability of resources, unremitting growth, excess, independence, competition and short-term thinking to those based on limits, equilibrium, balance, interdependence, cooperation and long-term thinking. This momentous transition is the source of far-reaching tension and conflict. The way through this difficult era is to understand its basis and to focus on new values that will be of the greatest benefit to humankind. There is an urgency, however, and failure to adapt will result in disaster both for humanity and for the planet as a whole. A New Reality delivers a message of both caution and hope. Readers across the social and political spectrum will find it a reasoned and balanced counterpoint to current social and political trends. Its elegant design and long-range perspective will appeal to general readers, policy makers, millennials, baby boomers, teachers, and students, filling a need in the marketplace for a work of positivity and wisdom in otherwise bleak times.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 194795105X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future provides a startling, fresh new message of understanding, perspective and hope for today’s tense, rapid-fire, kaleidoscopically changing world. A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future provides a startling, fresh new message of understanding, perspective and hope for today’s tense, rapid-fire, kaleidoscopically changing world. Drawn from the writings of visionary scientist Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine, extended and developed by his son Jonathan, the message of the book explodes from the past and sheds light on tensions that besiege us and the currents of discord that are raging as these words are written. More importantly, it indicates a way forward out of our current situation. Written by a world-famous doctor and folk hero, based on population data, rich in visual imagery, elegantly designed, and clearly written, A New Reality is unique in the marketplace. Readable in one or two sittings, it is accessible to the general reader while at the same time being of essential value to policy makers and academics. Its brevity and simplicity of design belie the importance and sophistication of its message. “We are at a point in the course of human social evolution when the demands of survival converge with the higher ideals of humankind and the well-being and flourishing of human society. It is up to us to see that we navigate this transition, adapting to and emerging in a new reality.” —A New Reality Our country is divided and polarized. Terrorism is a major threat throughout much of the world. Mass migrations are causing national and international tension. Population growth continues to increase, especially in the developing regions of the world. Controversy rages as to the use of fossil fuels versus the development of alternative forms of energy. Disagreement continues about climate change. Opposing currents of opinion collide as to how much we should help other areas in the world and how much to help ourselves. Basic values are in conflict. More than 40 years ago, Jonas Salk understood that we are at a unique moment in the history of the human species. After centuries of increase, population growth has begun to slow and is trending toward equilibrium. This change is accompanied by an equally significant change in human values—a shift from those based on unlimited availability of resources, unremitting growth, excess, independence, competition and short-term thinking to those based on limits, equilibrium, balance, interdependence, cooperation and long-term thinking. This momentous transition is the source of far-reaching tension and conflict. The way through this difficult era is to understand its basis and to focus on new values that will be of the greatest benefit to humankind. There is an urgency, however, and failure to adapt will result in disaster both for humanity and for the planet as a whole. A New Reality delivers a message of both caution and hope. Readers across the social and political spectrum will find it a reasoned and balanced counterpoint to current social and political trends. Its elegant design and long-range perspective will appeal to general readers, policy makers, millennials, baby boomers, teachers, and students, filling a need in the marketplace for a work of positivity and wisdom in otherwise bleak times.