Tag Archives: ethics

BOOK: “The Jefferson Bible” by Thomas Jefferson

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The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of NazarethThe Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas Jefferson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

PDF available online [Public Domain]

Thomas Jefferson (yes, the same one who wrote the Declaration of Independence) produced this book by cutting and pasting excerpts from the Gospels so as to produce a distillation of who he believed Jesus was and what Jesus’s essential teachings were. It mixes parables and other New Testament teachings with biographical description.

There is an introduction which offers the reader more specific insight into Jefferson’s thinking than can be gleaned merely from what he includes and what he trims. The Introduction also discusses the similarities and differences between Christian philosophy and that of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans.

If you’re looking for a condensed version of the New Testament, I’d highly recommend this book. Jefferson was obviously a sharp guy who looked at the Bible from the perspective of Enlightenment-era thinking.

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“Have you ever made a just man?” by Stephen Crane [w/ Audio]

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"Have you ever made a just man?"
 "Oh, I have made three," answered God,
 "But two of them are dead,
 And the third --
 Listen! Listen!
 And you will hear the thud of his defeat."

BOOKS: “Live Like a Philosopher” by Massimo Pigliucci, Gregory Lopez, and Meredith Alexander Kunz

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Live Like A Philosopher: What the Ancient Greeks and Romans Can Teach Us About Living a Happy LifeLive Like A Philosopher: What the Ancient Greeks and Romans Can Teach Us About Living a Happy Life by Gregory Lopez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Hachette / Headline Press

This book is for a person in the market for a philosophy of life, but who only knows that they want a system rooted in Ancient Greece. While the coauthors are all Stoics, the book explores twelve additional philosophies and gives each roughly equal consideration. In addition to the expected systems, such as Epicureanism, Stoicism, Platonism, and Skepticism, there are also several lesser known or defunct philosophies such as Cyrenaic hedonism, Cynicism, Pyrrhonism, and Megarianism.

The book is organized into four parts. The first examines schools that value pleasure (Cyrenaicism and Epicureanism,) the next investigates schools that focus on virtue and character (Aristotelian Peripatetics, Stoicism, Cynicism, and Political Platonism,) the penultimate focuses on systems encouraging doubt or caution in knowledge (Socratic philosophy, Academic Skepticism, Sophism, and Pyrrhonism,) and the last set are posed as questionable candidates for a life philosophy (i.e. those of the Pythagoreans, Megarians, and Neoplatonists.) The last three schools are questioned on various grounds, including: is enough known about what its practitioners believed, did they live their philosophy or just ruminate on it, and could the system be considered a full-fledged philosophy (as opposed to a stance on a specific issue or issues.)

The book is presented in self-help fashion, with each chapter ending in a set of exercises designed to help the reader build practical understanding of each school. The goal of these exercises (as comes together in an appendix) is to help the reader determine which philosophy is best suited to their disposition and inclinations.

I enjoyed this book. The authors use stories to convey ideas and the book’s readability is kept inviting to general readers. If you’re interested in better understanding Greek schools of philosophy, I’d recommend the book as quick and easy way to get a better grasp.

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BOOKS: “The Meaning of Travel” by Emily Thomas

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The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers AbroadThe Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad by Emily Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – OUP

Of late, I’ve been reflecting upon the philosophical divides that exist between travelers and others (I call them “tribals,” but they are by far the majority of people — i.e. those who either don’t travel [unless required to] or who travel only in a tourist-like fashion.) As I’ve done so, I’ve been surprised to find how limited the literature is on the subject. I was, therefore, pleased to find this book. While Thomas confirmed my preliminary findings that there isn’t much of a travel-centric subdiscipline of philosophy, she also shows that it’s not for a lack of philosophers traveling and pondering travel.

While I’ve spent considerable time thinking about a philosophy of travel, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a number of topics in Thomas’s book to which I’d hardly given any thought. These were the most personally fascinating topics because they involved such uncharted territory. They include: maps as propaganda, the importance of travel to scientific discovery, the domination of male perspective in our collective understanding of travel, and the ethics of doom travel (going to vanishing places.)

The book also advanced my understanding of subjects that I’ve often contemplated — e.g. aesthetics and travel, innate / universal ideas v. culturally-tinted ones, and the connection between minimalism and travel.

If you’re interested in philosophy, travel, and the intersect of the two, this book is definitely for you. The author takes a light approach and the book’s readability is high — i.e. while it is thought-provoking, it’s aimed at a general readership rather than a scholarly one.

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FIVE WISE LINES [May 2025]

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It is a happy talent to know how to play.

Ralph waldo emerson

Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.

Hans christian andersen

Don’t abandon kindness, mercy, and sympathy in an emergency.

Qiānzì wén [千字文], Ch. 3

Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

albert Einstein

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Henry david thoreau

BOOKS: “Wen-Tzu” Trans. by Thomas Cleary

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Wen-TzuWen-Tzu by Lao-Tzu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Shambhala

This work is presented as “further thoughts of Laozi [老子].” Readers of the Dàodé jīng [道德经] will recognize many a familiar statement of that work, but this book is much more extensive and detailed. I say “presented as” because scholars no longer believe this was a product of Laozi and his lifetime (if such an individual ever existed.) For one thing, the book seems more syncretic than the Dàodé jīng, that is to say there are points at which it sounds strikingly Confucian — rather than purely Taoist.

As with the Dàodé jīng the Wénzǐ [文子] covers a lot of ground from metaphysics to individual ethics to political philosophy, but this book has more room to sprawl on each subject.

As with other Cleary translations, it’s a pretty readable translation.

I’d recommend it for readers interested in Chinese Philosophy.

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PROMPT: Pet Peeves

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Daily writing prompt
Name your top three pet peeves.
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[Note: I will assume this to be the colloquial usage of “pet peeves” as I have no peeves about pets whatsoever (in fact, compared to most human children I see running around, I find pets to be positively civilized.)]

With that in mind:

1.) Forcing a “favor” on another person in expectation of some kind of reciprocation (usually outsized in scale to the fake favor.)

2.) Using the Q & A section of a program to make one’s own speech (the subtext being that one — rather than the lunkhead who just presented — should have been the one invited to speak in the first place.)

3.) Acting as though one particular set of cultural norms is the only moral / ethical way to live.

Bonus response: As we are presently on a blogging platform, I should mention a blogger’s peeve: Using another’s comment section as an advertisement for one’s own content — particularly with no actual comment about the post to which one’s “comment” is attached. I realize blogging is inherently a self-centered activity, but let’s not fall full-Narcissus into it.

BOOKS: “Handbooks for Daoist Practice: Scriptural Statutes of Lord Lao” by Louis Komjathy [and Lord Lao]

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Handbooks for Daoist Practice: Scriptural Statutes of Lord LaoHandbooks for Daoist Practice: Scriptural Statutes of Lord Lao by Louis Komjathy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Author Site

This paper presents exposition on, and translation of, an important Taoist work. Like many collections of sutras and other epigrams of wisdom, the “Scriptural Statutes of Lord Lao” are only a couple pages of sayings. To be more specific, they consist of nine practices (九行) and twenty-seven moral precepts. The bulk of the twenty-five-ish pages of this work are a scholarly background on the nine practices and twenty-seven precepts, plus back matter including references and the original (Chinese) “statutes.”

I read this because the nine practices seem like a concise statement of what it means to be Taoist (a topic that can be tremendously complicated given the varied sects, beliefs, and practices that all fall under the heading of “Taoist” — some religious, some philosophical, and some mystical.) Those nine practices are: non-action (which is much more complicated than just sitting on one’s bum,) softness, guarding the feminine, namelessness, stillness, adeptness, desirelessness, contentment, and knowing how and when to yield. The text offers some insight into where these practices come from (e.g. the points in the Dao De Jing that reverence them,) but the scope of the work is far to limited to gain a deep understanding of them (for that one will have to go elsewhere.)

I found reading this short work to be quite beneficial and insightful, despite its thin profile. I’m glad it includes the original text as well as provides citations, as therein much of its value lies.

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BOOKS: “The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic” by Jean-Manuel Roubineau

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The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the CynicThe Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic by Jean-Manuel Roubineau
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This is a translation of a French book about the life and philosophy of Diogenes the Cynic. It’s a thin volume, as there is much that’s unknown about the life of Diogenes, and the dearth of surviving texts means that some of what is believed about Diogenes and Cynic philosophy maybe corrupted by the reports of detractors. I learned a great deal from reading this book, but not because I learned much new about Diogenes, himself. The colorful anecdotes from his life have been extensively discussed.

With respect to what I did learn, it largely fell into three categories. First, I gained insight into the context and environment in which Diogenes lived. Second, I discovered that many of the stories of Diogenes’ life are far less certain than we have been led to believe through the presentations of them in so many books. For example, we know Diogenes was exiled from his native Sinope in relation to a scheme involving currency debasement. This is often straightforwardly stated as “Diogenes was a counterfeiter,” but Roubineau shows that we don’t know much (if anything) about the degree to which Diogenes was involved (i.e. whether he was mastermind, accomplice, or an unwitting pawn.) Third, I benefited from the comparing and contrasting of Cynic philosophy with that of predecessors (e.g. Socratics) and successors (e.g. Stoics,) and – in a few cases – comparisons between Diogenes and other Cynics.

The book consists of four chapters. The first is a discussion of what is known about Diogenes as a historical figure. The second focuses on the Cynics views on economy, wealth, and related ideas. The third explores the Cynic view of the human body and related topics like sex, pleasure, and pursuit of health and well-being. The last chapter considers Diogenes as a teacher and the Cynic approach to practicing philosophy.

I’d highly recommend this book for readers interested in philosophy.


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PROMPT: Patriotic

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Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you?

I certainly was as a young man, but increasingly I have shifted towards a more “citizen of the world” worldview. I’m no doubt influenced by my admiration for the life of Socrates (such as we know it,) who was said to have been a valiant and fearsome hoplite warrior in his youth but came to call himself a Citizen of the World. As one becomes governed less by passions and more by reason, it becomes easier to have a logically consistent ethics by doing so.

Consider the question: “Is it wrong to stab a person in the back without warning, a person who you do not know, a person who doesn’t know a thing about you and has never done you any personal wrong, a person who to your knowledge has always lived a good and virtuous life?”

Of course, the immediate impulse is to say that that act is clearly wrong. Really, the only case we can attempt to successfully counter argue would be a soldier in war or a military action acting on lawful orders against an enemy combatant. But everything becomes messy. Is it enough that the soldier is operating on “lawful orders?” In that case, is the soldier a moral individual, if he lacks agency? To what degree can a infantryman or spec ops soldier know that it is – in fact – a lawful order? Can a lawful order be morally and ethically reprehensible and indefensible? The questions abound, and that’s why I suspect Socrates – lover of questions as he might have been – had a shift in philosophy about the matter over the course of his life.

It may seem I’m arguing that this is growth or betterment, but maybe it’s just the natural progression of a life. Maybe we need more passion in our youth and more agency as we age.

Of course, in those elder / “citizen of the world years,” the Athenians straight up murdered their onetime hero, so maybe I have not picked the best role model.