Category Archives: History of moral thought

ON MORALITY AND ITS HISTORY

August 10, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a transcript of a talk I gave at the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. What can the history of morality tell us about the nature of morality? And about ourselves as human beings? These are the questions at the heart of The Quest for a Moral Compass. And these are the questions I want to explore tonight. For some, the questions themselves might seem absurd. It is striking that there are thousands of books about the […]

Categories: History, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: anti-imperialism, christianity, enlightenment, europe, french revolution, greek philosophy, haitian revolution, history of moral thought, human agency, human nature, imperialism, modernity, monotheism, morality, nietzsche, plato, radical enlightenment, thrasymachus, viktor frankl

ON THE QUEST FOR A MORAL COMPASS

January 25, 2016 by Kenan Malik

This is the text of my talk at the Galle Literary Festival Last week. What can the history of morality tell us about the nature of morality? And about ourselves as human beings? These are the questions at the heart of what I want to explore today. For some, the questions themselves might seem absurd. There is a widespread perception of morality as occupying a sphere of its own. We imagine that morality can, and should, be understood in its […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: anti-imperialism, chinese philosophy, christianity, enlightenment, ethics, europe, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, human agency, human nature, imperialism, modernity, monotheism, nietzsche, plato, radical enlightenment, thrasymachus, viktor frankl

MARX AND MORALITY

April 26, 2015 by Kenan Malik

To accompany the newly-published paperback edition of The Quest for a Moral Compass, I am running a series of extracts from the book. Previous extracts were on Joshua Greene’s idea of two modes of moral thinking and on whether universalism is merely a form of Western particularism. This extract, from Chapter 13, ‘The challenge of history’, examines Marx’s claim to be a moral thinker. You can buy The Quest for a Moral Compass in most bookshops, through Amazon or from […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: anti-capitalism, capitalism, communism, hegel, history of moral thought, left, marx, marxism, morality, working class

HISTORY, MORALITY AND THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

April 19, 2015 by Kenan Malik

The Quest for a Moral Compass is now out in paperback. And, to accompany the new edition. I am publishing a number of extracts from the book. This extract, from Chapter 19, ‘Confucianism, Communism and the Clash of Civilizations’, sets out many of the themes of the book against the background of the changing balance of power between China and the West. You can buy The Quest for a Moral Compass in most bookshops, through Amazon or from my Pandaemonium bookstore. From […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: china, chinese philosophy, clash of civilizations, confucianism, herder, history of moral thought, jiang qing, martin jacques, morality, romanticism, samuel huntington, universalism, west

THE MORAL CAMERA

April 11, 2015 by Kenan Malik

The Quest for a Moral Compass is now out in paperback. And, to accompany the new edition, I will be, over the next few weeks, running extracts from the book. This first extract is from Chapter 18, ‘The search for ethical concrete’, and looks at neuroscientist Joshua Greene‘s idea of morality as existing in two modes – automatic and manual. You can buy The Quest for a Moral Compass in most bookshops, through Amazon or from my Pandaemonium bookstore. From The […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: history of moral thought, joshua greene, kantianism, morality, peter singer, trolley problem, utilitarianism

OUT NOW IN PAPERBACK!

April 2, 2015 by Kenan Malik

. The Quest for a Moral Compass is now out in paperback! You can read reviews of the book. And you can buy it from most bookshops, from Amazon or via my Pandaemonium bookstore. The US version of the paperback will be published later this year. . ‘This is intellectual history in the grand manner, in the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, written with the same clarity, accessibility and narrative verve as the master himself…We are all […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: ethics, history of moral thought, kenan malik's books

FIVE TALES OF GOOD AND EVIL

March 5, 2015 by Kenan Malik

Today being World Book Day, I am publishing five extracts from my book The Quest for a Moral Compass, that explore five books from the ancient and medieval worlds, some well-known, some almost forgotten, but all of which have helped shape our thinking about right and wrong, good and evil – Homer’s Iliad, a foundation stone of Ancient Greek culture; the Mahabharata, the first of the two great epics of Hinduism; Mozi, the only work we have of ancient China’s […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: book of job, chinese philosophy, christianity, greek philosophy, hay ibn yaqzan, history of moral thought, homer, ibn tuff, iliad, islamic philosophy, judaism, mahabharata, mo tzu, morality

RIGHT AND WRONG IN THE MODERN WORLD

December 25, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Better than a sermon on Xmas day… a discussion of the history of morality, and of the state of contemporary moral thinking, with Philip Petit and Natasha Circa on Australia’s ABC Radio. http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2014/12/sea_20141220.mp3 For more discussions on morality see my talks on ‘Where do values come from’ at London’s RSA and ‘Without a moral safety net’ at the Glasgow Aye Write Festival. Or just get my book, The Quest for a Moral Compass. The image is a […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: greek philosophy, history of moral thought, kenan malik's books, modernity, morality, religion

REVIEWING THE QUEST

December 2, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is a round-up of the latest reviews of The Quest for a Moral Compass. On my Books page are all the reviews so far. You can buy the book from the Pandaemonium bookshop in Britain and the USA. Jonathan Israel New Humanist, Winter 2014 There could be no more daunting intellectual task than setting out to write a history of moral thought from the ancient Greeks until now. Yet there is no neater way of combining philosophy, religion, intellectual […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: christianity, enlightenment, history of moral thought, islam, jonathan israel, kenan malik's books, marxism, morality, radical enlightenment, religion

TALKING MORALITY

November 24, 2014 by Kenan Malik

I was a guest last week on Neil Denny’s Little Atoms show on Resonance FM, talking about the history of morality. Also on the show was Rebecca Goldstein, author of the wonderful Plato at the Googleplex, discussing Plato and his relevance. Unfortunately the two interviews were recorded separately, so we were not able to discuss issues on air. Nevertheless it was an honour to find myself on the same show. I have also uploaded here videos of a couple of […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: death of god, history of moral thought, morality, talks

A SNIPPET OF THE QUEST: ON NIETZSCHE’S GENEALOGY

September 23, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is the last (for the moment) of the snippets I have been publishing from The Quest for a Moral Compass. Taken from Chapter 14, ‘The Death of God, the end of morality’, it discusses a very different history of morality to mine – Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. . From The Quest for a Moral Compass, pp 241-246 Beneath the light and the froth and the absurd self-regardof Nietzsche’s work lay an engagement with the most profoundly unsettling issues […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: christianity, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, nietzsche, religion, socrates

A SNIPPET OF THE QUEST: ISLAM’S LOST TRADITIONS

September 17, 2014 by Kenan Malik

The US and Canadian edition of The Quest for a Moral Compass is now out. I am in New York and Toronto to talk about it. While I am away, I am publishing on Pandaemonium short extracts from the book. This first two snippets were on Aeschylus’ Oresteia and the philosophy of Mo Tzu. This third extract is from Chapter 8, and looks at the battle between the Rationalists and the Traditionalists in early Islamic philosophy. . From The Quest […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: al-ghazzali, al-kindi, history of moral thought, ibn rushd, ibn sina, islam, islamic philosophy, muslim rationalism, religion, theology

A SNIPPET FROM THE QUEST: MO TZU, LOST IN HISTORY

September 14, 2014 by Kenan Malik

The North American edition of The Quest for a Moral Compass is published this week by Melville House. I am in New York and Toronto to talk about it. While I am away, I am publishing on Pandaemonium short extracts from the book. This first snippet on Monday was from Chapter 1, and discussed Aeschylus’ Oresteia. This second snippet is from Chapter 6 and explores the ideas of Mo Tzu, a Chinese philosopher lost in history but whose significance is […]

Categories: History, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: china, chinese philosophy, confucianism, history of moral thought, mo tzu, mohism, universalism, utilitarianism

A SNIPPET OF THE QUEST: FROM HONOUR TO JUSTICE

September 8, 2014 by Kenan Malik

The North American edition of The Quest for a Moral Compass is published this week by Melville House. I will be in New York and Toronto to talk about it. While I am away, I will be publishing on Pandaemonium short extracts from the book. This first snippet is from Chapter 1, and discusses Aeschylus’ trilogy of tragedies, the Oresteia, and what it reveals to us about the transformation of Greek moral thought. I have previously published the opening section […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aeschylus, ethics, greek philosophy, greek tragedy, history of moral thought, homer

WHERE DO VALUES COME FROM?

June 17, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is a (slightly edited) video of a talk I gave last month at London’s RSA entitled ‘Where do values come from?’. It explores some of the themes in my book The Quest for a Moral Compass. .

Categories: History, History of moral thought, Human, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: ancient greece, ethics, history of moral thought, humanism, kenan malik's books, modernity, religion, talks