The Age of Virtue

The Age of Virtue
Author: D. Morse
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 339
Release: 2000-02-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 023028843X

In the eighteenth century 'virtue' was a word to conjure with. It called to mind heroic predecessors from the Roman Republic such as Cato and Brutus and invoked qualities of personal integrity, selflessness and a concern for the common good, which, though urgently needed, seemed desperately lacking, both in the ruthless party struggles of the age of Anne and subsequently in the all-pervading political corruption of the Walpole administration. When the longed-for political saviour failed to materialize it was increasingly felt that if virtue existed at all then it would have to be sought for among the lower orders of society or else in provincial areas, where simpler and nobler values might still prevail. But with the coming of the French Revolution and Romanticism virtue began to lose its powerful resonances - it now seemed naive and simplistic, all too ready to deny both the complexities of human nature and the possibility of determination by external cultural forces.

Children's Book of Virtues

Children's Book of Virtues
Author: William John Bennett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 120
Release: 1995
Genre: Children's literature
ISBN: 068481353X

A collection of stories and poems presented to teach virtues, including compassion, courage, honesty, friendship, and faith.

The Bourgeois Virtues

The Bourgeois Virtues
Author: Deirdre Nansen
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 637
Release: 2010-03-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226556670

For a century and a half, the artists and intellectuals of Europe have scorned the bourgeoisie. And for a millennium and a half, the philosophers and theologians of Europe have scorned the marketplace. The bourgeois life, capitalism, Mencken’s “booboisie” and David Brooks’s “bobos”—all have been, and still are, framed as being responsible for everything from financial to moral poverty, world wars, and spiritual desuetude. Countering these centuries of assumptions and unexamined thinking is Deirdre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues, a magnum opus that offers a radical view: capitalism is good for us. McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with her erudition and sheer scope of knowledge. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations. High Noon, Kant, Bill Murray, the modern novel, van Gogh, and of course economics and the economy all come into play in a book that can only be described as a monumental project and a life’s work. The Bourgeois Virtues is nothing less than a dazzling reinterpretation of Western intellectual history, a dead-serious reply to the critics of capitalism—and a surprising page-turner.

Virtue in an Age of Identity Politics

Virtue in an Age of Identity Politics
Author: Jonathan D. Church
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2022-05-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1475863160

Virtue in an Age of Identity Politics: A Stoic Approach to Social Justice proffers Stoicism as a more constructive approach to social justice activism than Critical Social Justice, the current core framework for social justice activism in the 21st-century. Critical Social Justice examines ideologies that underlie the stratification of society in ways that confer ongoing benefits to some groups at the expense of other groups and aims for a radical reshaping of prevailing institutions because they purportedly, and irredeemably, underlie a set of norms, beliefs, and attitudes which will continue to perpetuate social inequalities if we do not undertake efforts to rethink, disrupt, and restructure society. Stoicism, the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, is chosen specifically to help navigate the contentious discourse on “systemic” power and privilege which dominates the Critical Social Justice paradigm. In emphasizing intent over impact, as well as the distinction between the circumstances of our lives and the living of our lives, the Stoic approach highlights the vital importance of reason and virtue in achieving a connection between the individualistic concern with cultivation of a good character and the collective concern with making the world a better place.

The Book of Virtues: 30th Anniversary Edition

The Book of Virtues: 30th Anniversary Edition
Author: William J. Bennett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2022-11-29
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1982197110

Help your children develop moral character with this updated, 30th anniversary edition of the perennial classic The Book of Virtues. Almost 3 million copies of the Book of Virtues have been sold since it was published in 1993. It is one of the most popular moral primers ever written, an inspiring anthology that helps children understand and develop character—and helps parents teach it to them. Thirty years ago, readers thought that the times were right for a book about moral literacy. Back then, Americans worried that schools were no longer parents’ allies in teaching good character. As the book’s original introduction noted, “moral anchors and moorings have never been more necessary.” If that was true in the 1990s, it is even more true today. The explosion of information with the Internet has left many unsure of what is valuable and what is not. Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Loyalty. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Hard work. Self-discipline. Faith. These remain the essentials of good character. The Book of Virtues contains hundreds of exemplary stories offering children examples of good and bad, right and wrong. Drawing on the Bible, American history, Greek mythology, English poetry, fairy tales, and modern fiction, William J. and Elayne Bennett show children the many virtuous paths they can follow—and the ones they ought to avoid. For the 30th anniversary edition, the Bennetts have slimmed down the book’s contents, while also finding room to introduce such figures as Mother Teresa, Colin Powell, and heroes of 9/11 and the War in Afghanistan. Here is a rich mine of moral literacy to teach a new generation of children about American culture, history, and traditions—ultimately, the ideals by which we wish to live our lives. The updated edition of The Book of Virtues will continue a legacy of raising moral children far into a new century.

Delete

Delete
Author: Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2011-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1400838452

The hazards of perfect memory in the digital age Delete looks at the surprising phenomenon of perfect remembering in the digital age, and reveals why we must reintroduce our capacity to forget. Digital technology empowers us as never before, yet it has unforeseen consequences as well. Potentially humiliating content on Facebook is enshrined in cyberspace for future employers to see. Google remembers everything we've searched for and when. The digital realm remembers what is sometimes better forgotten, and this has profound implications for us all. In Delete, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger traces the important role that forgetting has played throughout human history, from the ability to make sound decisions unencumbered by the past to the possibility of second chances. The written word made it possible for humans to remember across generations and time, yet now digital technology and global networks are overriding our natural ability to forget—the past is ever present, ready to be called up at the click of a mouse. Mayer-Schönberger examines the technology that's facilitating the end of forgetting—digitization, cheap storage and easy retrieval, global access, and increasingly powerful software—and describes the dangers of everlasting digital memory, whether it's outdated information taken out of context or compromising photos the Web won't let us forget. He explains why information privacy rights and other fixes can't help us, and proposes an ingeniously simple solution—expiration dates on information—that may. Delete is an eye-opening book that will help us remember how to forget in the digital age.

The Book of Virtues

The Book of Virtues
Author: William J. Bennett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 2005
Release: 2010-05-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1439126259

Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Faith. Everyone recognizes these traits as essentials of good character. In order for our children to develop such traits, we have to offer them examples of good and bad, right and wrong. And the best places to find them are in great works of literature and exemplary stories from history. William J. Bennett has collected hundreds of stories in The Book of Virtues, an instructive and inspiring anthology that will help children understand and develop character -- and help adults teach them. From the Bible to American history, from Greek mythology to English poetry, from fairy tales to modern fiction, these stories are a rich mine of moral literacy, a reliable moral reference point that will help anchor our children and ourselves in our culture, our history, and our traditions -- the sources of the ideals by which we wish to live our lives. Complete with instructive introductions and notes, The Book of Virtues is a book the whole family can read and enjoy -- and learn from -- together.

Prudence

Prudence
Author: Robert Hariman
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2010-11-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780271046662

This volume brings together scholars in classics, political philosophy, and rhetoric to analyze prudence as a distinctive and vital form of political intelligence. Through case studies from each of the major periods in the history of prudence, the authors identify neglected resources for political judgement in today's conditions of pluralism and interdependency. Three assumptions inform these essays: the many dimensions of prudence cannot be adequately represented in the lexicon of any single discipline; the Aristotelian focus on prudence as rational calculation needs to be balanced by the Ciceronian emphasis on prudence as discursive performance embedded in familiar social practices; and understanding prudence requires attention to how it operates thorough the communicative media and public discourses that constitute the political community.

Virtue Hoarders

Virtue Hoarders
Author: Catherine Liu
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 83
Release: 2021-01-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1452966044

A denunciation of the credentialed elite class that serves capitalism while insisting on its own progressive heroism Professional Managerial Class (PMC) elite workers labor in a world of performative identity and virtue signaling, publicizing an ability to do ordinary things in fundamentally superior ways. Author Catherine Liu shows how the PMC stands in the way of social justice and economic redistribution by promoting meritocracy, philanthropy, and other self-serving operations to abet an individualist path to a better world. Virtue Hoarders is an unapologetically polemical call to reject making a virtue out of taste and consumption habits. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

Where Goodness Still Grows

Where Goodness Still Grows
Author: Amy Peterson
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2020-01-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0785225730

Declining church attendance. A growing feeling of betrayal. For Christians who have begun to feel set adrift and disillusioned by their churches, Where Goodness Still Grows grounds us in a new view of virtue deeply rooted in a return to Jesus Christ’s life and ministry. The evangelical church in America has reached a crossroads. Social media and recent political events have exposed the fault lines that exist within our country and our spiritual communities. Millennials are leaving the church, citing hypocrisy, partisanship, and unkindness as reasons they can’t stay. In this book Amy Peterson explores the corruption and blind spots of the evangelical church and the departure of so many from the faith - but she refuses to give up hope, believing that rescue is on the way. Where Goodness Still Grows: Dissects the moral code of American evangelicalism Reimagines virtue as a tool, not a weapon Explores the Biblical meaning of specific virtues like kindness, purity, and modesty Provides comfort, hope, and a path towards spiritual restoration Amy writes as someone intimately familiar with, fond of, and deeply critical of the world of conservative evangelicalism. She writes as a woman and a mother, as someone invested in the future of humanity, and as someone who just needs to know how to teach her kids what it means to be good. Amy finds that if we listen harder and farther, we will find the places where goodness still grows. Praise for Where Goodness Still Grows: “In this poignant, honest book, Amy Peterson confronts her disappointment with the evangelical leaders who handed her The Book of Virtues then happily ignored them for the sake of political power. But instead of just walking away, Peterson rewrites the script, giving us an alternative book of virtues needed in this moment. And it’s no mistake that it ends with hope.” — James K. A. Smith, author of You Are What You Love