Books for 2008

Philosophy (Ethics):

• Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments, R. Jay Wallace
• Reconciling Our Aims: In Search for Bases for Ethics, Allan Gibbard
• Ethics without Principles, Jonathan Dancy
• Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame, T.M. Scanlon
• The Collapse of the Fact/Value Distinction and Other Essays, Hilary Putnam
• Morality without Foundations, Mark Timmons
• Normativity and the Will, R. Jay Wallace
• Reasons and the Good, Roger Crisp
• Moral Realism: A Defense, Russ Shafer-Landau
• Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits, Jeffrie Murphy
• Six Myths about the Good Life: Thinking about What Has Value, Joel Kupperman
• Experiments in Ethics, Anthony Appiah
• Bernard Williams, Edited by Alan Thomas
• The Second-Person Standpoint, Stephen Darwall
• 10 Moral Paradoxes, Saul Smilansky

Philosophy (Rationality and Action Theory):

• Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya
• Four Views on Free Will, John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, Derk Pereboom, and Manuel Vargas
• The Possibility of Practical Reason, J. David Velleman
• Problems of Rationality, Donald Davidson
• A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, Robert Kane
• Rationality in Action, John Searle

Philosophy (Applied Ethics, Political Philosophy, Legal Philosophy):

• Rawls, Catherine Audard
• Capitalism at the Crossroads: Aligning Business, Earth and Humanity, Stuart L. Hart
• Harvard Business Review on Corporate Responsibility
• Public Goods, Private Goods, Raymond Geuss
• Harvard Business Review on Business Ethics
  
• In the Beginning Was the Deed, Bernard Williams
• Rawls, Samuel Freeman
• The Ethics of What We Eat, Peter Singer
• Politics and Passion, Michael Walzer
• Moral Issues in Business, William Shaw and Vincent Barry
• Modern Liberty and the Limits of Government, Charles Fried
• Worth and Welfare in the Controversy over Abortion, Christopher Miles Coope

Philosophy (General):

• Hilary Putnam, Max De Gainford
• Ways of World Making, Nelson Goodman
• Realism with a Human Face, Hilary Putnam
• Reason, Truth, and History, Hilary Putnam
• Authority and Estrangement: An Essay on Self-Knowledge, Richard Moran
• Furnishing the Mind, Jesse Prinz
• Open Minded: Working Out the Logic of the Soul, Jonathan Lear
• Physicalism or Something Near Enough, Jaegwon Kim
• The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy: of Mind, Edited by Stephen Stich
• The View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel
• Philosophy of Mathematics, James Robert Brown
• A Virtue Epistemology, Ernest Lepore
• Epistemology, Robert Audi

Philosophy (History):

• Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen, Harry Frankfurt
• Spinoza, Michael Della Rocca
• Hobbes and Republian Liberty, Quentin Skinner
• The Blackwell Guide to Descartes’ Meditations, Stephen Gaukroger
• An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, David Hume
• Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche
• Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Stephen Toulmin
• The Cambridge Companion to Mill, John Skorupski (Editor)
• Rights, Welfare, and Mill’s Moral Theory, David Lyons
• William James in the Maelstrom of American Modernism, Robert D. Richardson

Criticism, Literary History, and Aesthetics:

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace
• Rome: Art and Architecture, Brigitte Hintzen-Bohlen
• Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, Ashley Kahn
• Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace
• Roman Literature and Society, Robert M. Ogilvie
• The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century, Alex Ross
• Art and Its Objects, Richard Wollheim
• The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts, Milan Kundera

Social Science:

• The Return of Depression Economics, Paul Krugman
• Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry M. Bartels
• The Logic of Life, Tim Harford
• Marx’s Revenge, Meghnad Desai
• Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, Richard Layard
• Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Sigmund Freud
• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
• Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Sigmund Freud
• The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas, Robert Frank
• Freud, Jonathan Lear
• Basic Freud, Michael Kahn
• Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely
• The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain, James Blair, Derek Mitchells, and Katrian Blair
• Discover Your Inner Economist, Tyler Cowen
• The Social Psychology of Good and Evil, Arthur G. Miller (Editor)
• Who Rules America?, G. William Domhoff

Novels:

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price, J.K. Rowling
• Baudolino, Umberto Eco
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling
• Falling Man, Don DeLillo
• The American, Henry James
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling
• Roderick Hudson, Henry James
• Persuasion Jane Austen
• Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
• Hard Times, Charles Dickens
• The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

Short Fiction:

• Jesus’ Son, Dennis Johnson
• Shakespeare’s Memory, Jorge Luis Borges
• The Book of Sand, Jorge Luis Borges
• The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
• The Third Policeman, Flan O’Brien
• The Oxford Murders, Guillermo Martinez
• The Secret Sharer, Joseph Conrad
• Typhoon, Joseph Conrad
• Youth: A Narrative, Joseph Conrad
• The Wife, Anton Chekhov

Drama and Poetry:

• The Complete Odes and Epodes of Horace, Translated by W.G. Shepherd
• Tartuffe, Translated by Richard Wilbur
• Selected Poems, Robert Frost

Religion and Theology:

• Islam: A Short History, Karen Armstrong
• Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman

History:

• The Oxford History of Britain, Kenneth Morgan
• The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History, Philip Bobbitt
• The Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Conference of Vienna, Adam Zamoyski
• Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Pax Britannica, James Morris
• The Crusades, Richard Newhall
• The Pursuit of Glory: Five Revolutions That Made Modern Europe 1648-1815, Tim Blanning
• The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War, Fred Anderson
  
• From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present, Jacques Barzun
• The Summer of ‘49, David Halberstam
• An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa 1942-1943, Rick Atkinson
• In The Wake Of The Plague: The Black Death and The World It Made, Norman Cantor
  
• American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic, Joseph J. Ellis
• Arsenals of Folly: The History of the Nuclear Arms Race, Robertson Dean
• The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945, Geoffrey C. Ward
• Paris: 1919, Margaret Macmillan

Biography:

• American Prometheus, Kai Bird
• Born Standing Up, Steve Martin
• Eminent Victorians, Lytton Stratchy
• Machiavelli in Hell, Sebastian De Grazia
• The Bush Tragedy, Jacob Weisberg
• The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century, Steven Coll
• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
• Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Reason, Roger Pearson
• FDR, Jean Edward Smith

Current Events and Political/Legal Affairs:

• The War within: A Secret White House History: 2006-2008, Bob Woodward
• The Way of the World, Ron Suskind
• The End of Poverty, Robert Sachs
• American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips
• The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Became a War on American Ideals, Jane Mayer
• Standard Operating Procedure, Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris
• The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby
• Of Power and Paradise: America and Europe in the New World Order, Robert Kagan
• Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court, Jan Crawford Greenburg
• Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance, Ian Buruma

Odds and Ends:

• The MIDI Companion, Jeffrey Rona
• When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris
• Earth: The Sequel, Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
• Change Your Career: Transitioning to the Nonprofit Sector, Laura Gassner Otting
• Getting Things Done, David Allen
• In Defence of Food, Michael Pollan
• A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
• Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

Hiatus

This blog is currently on hiatus.

Di Gran Carriera

Di Gran Carriera

Originally uploaded by il Presbite

American Attitudes toward Race

Obviously, this is a very complex topic, but a few stats from Jacob Weisberg at Slate are worth pondering:

26 percent of whites say they have been victims of discrimination. Twenty-seven percent say too much has been made of the problems facing black people. Twenty-four percent say the country isn’t ready to elect a black president. Five percent of white voters acknowledge that they, personally, would not vote for a black candidate.

Weisberg continues:

Five percent surely understates the reality. In the Pennsylvania primary, one in six white voters told exit pollsters race was a factor in his or her decision. Seventy-five percent of those people voted for Clinton. You can do the math: 12 percent of the Pennsylvania primary electorate acknowledged that it didn’t vote for Barack Obama in part because he is African-American. And that’s what Democrats in a Northeastern(ish) state admit openly. The responses in Ohio and even New Jersey were dispiritingly similar.

Wow.  The rest is of the article is here.  BTW, Weisberg’s The Bush Tragedy is an excellent read.

Oxfam: FEMA’s Latest Excuse

From Oxfam America:

“No one asked us for the supplies.”

That was the response of a FEMA official when asked why tens of millions of dollars in critical supplies were not distributed to survivors of Hurricane Katrina. With poor people still living in trailers three years after the worst natural disaster in US history, that is FEMA’s excuse?

Were those supplies needed?

“Of course they were,” said Glenda Perryman, director of Mississippi-based, and Oxfam America partner organization, United Hearts Community Action Agency.

Recently, CNN did a report on how millions of dollars’ worth of supplies were given away, rather than sent to help people in need. The reason? FEMA said no one asked for them. Can you believe that?

Help Oxfam America do something to change the situation. Please tell FEMA today that you want the supplies delivered to people who need them most-those affected by Hurricane Katrina. http://act.oxfamamerica.org/campaign/fema_2008?source=08fy_ac_facebook

Even before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast, Louisiana and Mississippi were the two poorest states in the nation. Nearly one in five residents lived below the national poverty line of about $20,000 in annual income for a family of four. Good schools, job opportunities, and decent housing were scarce. Now the region is in crisis.

Nearly three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita carved their destructive paths across the Gulf Coast, life is still far from normal for many thousands of people displaced by the storms. Many have not been able to rebuild their houses, and so they continue to live in trailers or even in buses or on boats.

Oxfam America, working through its partner organizations in the region, continues to support efforts to ensure that all survivors-including people most direly affected by the storms, such as African-Americans, the elderly, immigrants, and poor people-have a voice in decisions about the recovery process.

Unfortunately, FEMA is still not doing its part. Join Oxfam America and our partners in calling on FEMA to do everything it can to get the supplies to Katrina survivors. http://act.oxfamamerica.org/campaign/fema_2008?source=08fy_ac_facebook

Santa Fe Church, near Jemez

Santa Fe Church, near Jemez

Originally uploaded by Mr. Mark

Catalina Island – 1

Catalina Island – 1

Originally uploaded by dreaming_spires

Human Rights Watch: Ending the Use of Cluster Munitions

From Human Rights Watch:

Amnesty International: Human Rights Activists in China

Embedded Video

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Catalina Island – 2

Catalina Island – 2

Originally uploaded by dreaming_spires

Oxfam on Darfur: Where’s the UN Peace-Keeping Force?

From Oxfam:

One year ago today, the UN announced that a peacekeeping force would finally be sent into Darfur to protect civilians and aid workers.

While not solving the crisis, the move was hailed as a ray of hope for the people of Darfur. At 26,000 strong, this force was planned to be the largest peacekeeping operation in the world.

However, a full year after its creation, the force has only 9,000 troops and is struggling to do its job. The world has failed to provide the troops and equipment that were promised. And the violence in Darfur continues.

Tell President Bush to do all he can to fully deploy the international peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The troops now on the ground come largely from an existing African Union force that was unable to provide protection on its own. It’s not a recipe for success.

Worse, the troops lack proper equipment—from much-needed helicopters down to basics such as food, boots, and helmets. Some troops have resorted to putting blue plastic bags over their old helmets in order to make the helmets regulation UN blue.

Not surprisingly, many Darfuris say the force is unable to make a difference in their lives. The UN-African Union Mission UNAMID alone cannot solve the Darfur crisis—the world must pressure the parties to the conflict to immediately cease hostilities and return to negotiations. But a full force of 26,000 could significantly improve the situation in Darfur by providing real protection for civilians.

Call on President Bush to keep his promises and protect the people of Darfur.

The people of Darfur have waited too long for protection. Thank you for taking action on this urgent issue.

Amnesty International Web Site Banned in China

From Amnesty International:

In China, you’re banned from looking at the Amnesty International web site – even if you’re a journalist covering the Olympic Games!

Yesterday, we wrote to you asking you to join Amnesty in urging President Bush to publicly condemn China’s human rights violations before the Summer Games begin on August 8^th.

Today, I’m asking you to make a donation to support Amnesty’s work to fight these abuses and draw worldwide attention to China’s broken promises.

Now, we’ve learned that a day after Amnesty International issued a comprehensive report on how the Chinese government was failing to live up to its promises on human rights, the Chinese government shut down access to our web site – even for foreign reporters in Beijing to cover the Olympics.

Internet censorship for the people of China is nothing new, but the Olympics were supposed to be different. When China bid for the Olympics in 2001, it declared that it would “give the media complete freedom to report when they come to China” if the International Olympic Committee (IOC) selected Beijing to host the Games.
With your financial support, Amnesty International will continue to call for an end to media censorship, work to free those wrongly detained for acts of peaceful self-expression, and speak on behalf of China’s citizens who have been silenced against their will.

Failure to speak out now is to miss the unique opportunity to push for positive human rights change in China.

With your help, Amnesty will continue to pressure Chinese authorities to grant foreign and local journalists alike the freedom to report on the news as they see fit – and honor their commitments as Olympic host.

Catalina Island – 3

Catalina Island – 3

Originally uploaded by dreaming_spires

The view from our hotel room on Catalina Island.

Steve Herberman Making Me Sick (In A Good Way)

Oxfam Goes Into Congo

From Oxfam America:

Oxfam Goes Into Congo

Since war broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998, more than five million people have died—most of them from lack of access to food and health care. And though the conflict officially ended in 2003, fighting has continued, mainly in the country’s eastern provinces.

Today, the humanitarian situation in eastern Congo is among the worst in the world. Oxfam staff members recently returned from Congo and have written about what they saw and how our work is making a difference in the lives of thousands of people. Check out the Congo feature on our home page today.

It’s Been a Year: Where Is the Darfur Peacekeeping Force?

One year ago, the UN announced that a peacekeeping force would finally be sent into Darfur to protect civilians and aid workers. However, a full year after its creation, the force has just a fraction of its planned troop strength and is struggling to do its job. International leaders have failed to provide the promised troops and equipment—and the violence has continued.

Tell President Bush to do all he can to fully deploy the international peacekeeping force in Darfur.

Help Fight the Global Food Crisis!

As food prices soar by as much as 80 percent around the globe, already impoverished people are facing increasingly dire prospects for hunger, malnutrition, and disease.

Oxfam is working to empower communities to respond with their own life-changing solutions: village savings groups, innovative rice-growing techniques, seed banks, irrigation projects, and more. Will you help us today?

Please donate now.

Join Oxfam’s Humanitarian Action Team

Join our new team of supporters from around the US, and help take the lead on humanitarian issues and emergencies. When you sign up, you’ll join a core group dedicated to creating lasting change by influencing US legislation on humanitarian issues such as the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the earthquake in China, and the global food crisis. Please join today!

A New Way to Measure Well-Being (and Track the Communities Left Behind)

Oxfam America helped fund the development of a new measure of well-being for all Americans. It combines health, education, and income into a unique, at-a-glance index of where communities stand, and it has helped highlight some of the major inequalities in the US. For instance, people in the last-ranked state of Mississippi are living 30 years behind those in first-ranked Connecticut. To learn more about the report and where your community falls, click here.

Amnesty International: No Trial, No Justice?

Civita di Bagnoregio

Civita di Bagnoregio

Originally uploaded by Iridium1

Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 3

From Distrowatch:

Steve Langasek announced the availability of the third alpha release of Ubuntu 8.10, code name “Intrepid Ibex”: “Welcome to Intrepid Ibex Alpha-3, which will in time become Ubuntu 8.10. Alpha 3 is the third in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Intrepid development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Intrepid. Alpha 3 includes a number of software updates that are ready for large-scale testing. Please refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/alpha3 for information on changes in Ubuntu.” Read the release announcement for further details. The “alternate” installation images are available from mirrors: intrepid-alternate-i386.iso (693MB, MD5, torrent), intrepid-alternate-amd64.iso (699MB, MD5, torrent). Also released: Kubuntu 8.10 Alpha 3 and Xubuntu 8.10 Alpha 3.

Amnesty International: China’s leadership Ordered Local Governments to Prevent Civilian Protesters in Beijing

From Amnesty International:

China’s leadership recently ordered local governments to go “all out” to prevent civilian protesters from tarnishing the Olympic Games in Beijing next month.

Can you help Amnesty International go “all out” to focus world attention on the peaceful activists languishing in Chinese prisons by making a donation to our China Olympics Legacy Campaign today?

Chen Guangcheng is one of the courageous activists Amnesty International is working to free. The blind human rights defender and legal advisor was arrested in 2005 for filing a lawsuit on behalf of thousands of women in Shandong Province who endured forced abortions and sterilizations to meet local birth quotas.

Chen’s wife and lawyers were barred from appearing in court to defend him – and after a 1-day trial he received a 4-year prison sentence. Chen’s situation remains grim, as he’s reportedly been beaten in captivity. He won the Magsaysay award – described as Asia’s Nobel Prize – in July 2007 for defending human rights. But Chinese authorities even prevented Chen’s wife from traveling to the Philippines to accept the prize on his behalf.

The next few weeks are crucial for our China Olympics Legacy Campaign. With your tax-deductible gift today, we will:

• Urge President Bush to call for the release of human rights defenders like Chen Guangcheng and others when he meets with Chinese officials during the opening of the Games
• Provide American athletes with toolkits to help them speak up – if they choose – about Chinese prisoners of conscience and the government’s human rights record
• Encourage corporate sponsors such as Coca-Cola and McDonald’s to use their influence to call for an end to the ongoing abuses

The world needs to know that China has fallen far short of the promise it made in its Olympic bid – to improve its human rights record in the lead-up to the Games.

Please make a tax-deductible contribution to help Amnesty draw worldwide attention to the plight of Chen Guangcheng and so many other peaceful human rights defenders like him.

Together, you and I can send a message that everyone – whether a gold-medal athlete or an ordinary Chinese citizen – is entitled to human rights.

Oxfam: New Info on the Democractic Republic of Congo

From Oxfam America:

We’ve posted a lot of new information on Oxfam’s work in the Congo. In the coming months, you’ll be hearing a lot more about our work there as we’ve got some exciting stuff coming on the horizon. Check out the new info here http://www.oxfamamerica.org/.

UK – Oxford – College reflection

UK – Oxford – College reflection

Originally uploaded by darrell godliman

AI: The Right to Free and Fair Elections

From Amnesty International USA:

There’s no better time to rock the vote for human rights than now! Exercise the universal right to free and fair elections.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the declaration that enshrines human rights for all people and all nations – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Under Article 21 of the UDHR, everyone has the right to participate in government and open elections. As a human rights advocate, you understand just how important it is to protect that right. Our allies at Rock the Vote have made it easy to exercise that right – register to vote.

In many countries without free and fair elections, government officials are not held accountable and human rights are regularly denied. Harness your power to make human rights a reality for all people. When you raise your voice with other concerned citizens, your government is able to hear about important issues like:

• freeing prisoners of conscience
• stopping violence against women
• abolishing the death penalty
• ensuring human rights for all people

When you exercise your voting rights, you help advance human rights. Register to vote today and take part in our democracy. And then encourage your friends to do the same. Forward this email to five friends now.

Bart Ehrman Interview

Some interesting thoughts about New Testament scholarship and the problem of evil:

Orvieto, il Duomo

Orvieto, il Duomo

Originally uploaded by honeycri

Kurt Rosenwinkel – Zhivago