The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics

by Kenan Malik Narrated by Homer Todiwala

Overview

Accessible, fascinating, and thought-provoking, this is the groundbreaking story of the global search for moral truths



In this remarkable book, Kenan Malik explores the history of moral thought as it has developed over three millennia, from Homer's Greece to Mao's China, from ancient India to modern America. It tells the stories of the great philosophers, and breathes life into their ideas, while also challenging many of our most cherished moral beliefs.



Engaging and provocative, The Quest for a Moral Compass confronts some of humanity's deepest questions. Where do values come from? Is God necessary for moral guidance? Are there absolute moral truths? It also brings morality down to earth, showing how, throughout history, social needs and political desires have shaped moral thinking. It is a history of the world told through the history of moral thought, and a history of moral thought that casts new light on global history.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Malik is admirably evenhanded in considering the history of ethical thought. An excellent survey for intermediate students of philosophy and a fine course in self-education for general readers."
—Kirkus Reviews

“What I love about Kenan Malik’s book is its unashamed, unabashed ambition: he wants to write the history of moral thought, not just in the Western tradition, but of all the traditions that make up the global argument about the direction that the human moral compass should point. The result is a tour de force of lucidity and narrative skill.”
—Michael Ignatieff

“An absolute tour de force. I can imagine it replacing Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy on many a bookshelf—certainly mine.”
—Tom Holland, author of In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire

“This is an extraordinarily rewarding investigation of the most striking, and contested, aspect of our humanity . . . To read it is not only to be better informed but also to be more alert to the assumptions that have guided human beings in the past, and to our capacity for goodness and wickedness.”
—Raymond Tallis, author of The Kingdom of Infinite Space

Kirkus Reviews

2014-09-17
God is dead, says Nietzsche. Nietzsche is dead, says God. Dead or not, Nietzsche is wrong, writes British neurobiologist and philosopher Malik—and so is sophist Thrasymachus, for that matter.In a text that takes in well-known students of the topic and any number of obscurities (and even obscurantists), the author looks closely into the sticky business of ethics, both as distinct from and as adjunct to morals. In both, he approvingly quotes Alasdair MacIntyre as observing there's a difference between humans as they are and humans as they could (and should) be. Cultures through time have differed markedly in their conceptions of the latter: The Greeks saw their gods as being "capricious, vain, vicious, and deceitful"—in short, much like us though much more powerful. Their vision of a messy, chaotic, violent world took on a more orderly mien in the worldview of Christians such as Augustine, who, Malik notes, found ways to justify slavery theologically. Malik takes care to distinguish moral universes in which humans are thought to have choice from those in which they do not, matters that feed into clashing ideologies today. Yet, as he writes, agency notwithstanding, all cultures have some notion of right and wrong, and all of us are naked, without protection, and in eminent danger of "falling off the moral tightrope that we are condemned to walk as human beings." In a text that moves comfortably among cultures, continents and centuries, Malik delivers some of the best of what has been thought about ethical matters and some of the worst as well. Fans of Nietzsche (or perhaps of Leopold and Loeb, for that matter) won't appreciate some of the author's conclusions, but Malik is admirably evenhanded in considering the history of ethical thought. An excellent survey for intermediate students of philosophy and a fine course in self-education for general readers.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177986258
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	04/25/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,194,867

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