Sublime

Here the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre perceives a shift from communal ethics to a world order in which the individual has apparently become the norm. In his magnum opus After Virtue, MacIntyre explodes, among other things, the myth of modern moral freedom. Yes, we have been liberated from priests and the morality they imposed on us; but,

Chapter 1 The Surge of Suffering

How can a society predicated on the conviction that individuals can only be evaluated in reference to the average ever create the conditions for understanding and harnessing individuality?

When epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett studied a range of high-income countries in their 2009 book, The Spirit Level, they discovered that it is national inequality, not national wealth, that most influences nations’ social welfare. More unequal countries, they found, tend to have more teenage pregnancy, mental illness, drug use, o

What causes such disparities? Surely it cannot simply be the quality of education on offer at different schools. One general answer to this question was proposed by the sociologist Basil Bernstein, who came up with an interesting insight on the consequences of differences between the cultures of school and home, and in particular the kinds of langu

If Taylor’s claim were true that black criminality is heavily genetic, we would see consistent black crime rates over time. But in fact black crime rates in America have fluctuated in relation to whites.

Sen is the father of the Capability Approach, a critical contribution to welfare economics which has been hugely influential since the 1980s. Instead of crude financial measures or naive hedonism, Sen argued that the highest good was the freedom to choose a life one has reason to value—to have options, and thus be able to live deliberately.