Category Archives: History of moral thought

IGNORANCE, DISHONESTY AND JOHN GRAY

June 12, 2014 by Kenan Malik

John Gray, former Professor of European Thought at the LSE, last week reviewed The Quest for a Moral Compass for the New Statesman, for which he is the lead reviewer. (The review is not online but I will try to include it in my next round-up of commentary on my book.) It was what you might call a ‘scorched earth’ review. The Quest for a Moral Compass is, Gray claimed, a ‘rationalist fairytale’ from which ‘all of the repugnant and troubling […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History of moral thought • Tags: john gray, kenan malik's books

FIRST WORD ON THE QUEST

May 26, 2014 by Kenan Malik

These are the early reviews of The Quest for a Moral Compass – and very heartening they are too. You can read the opening section of the book, and a talk I gave about it at the Glasgow Aye Write Festival. And you can buy the book from the Pandaemonium bookshop. I will publish later reviews in time. . Anthony Kenny, Literary Review , May 2014 Kenan Malik invites his readers to consider the following questions. Can the mind be understood scientifically, […]

Categories: Culture & Books, History of moral thought, Kenan Malik • Tags: history of moral thought, kenan malik's books

WITHOUT A MORAL SAFETY NET

May 12, 2014 by Kenan Malik

This is the text of a talk about my book The Quest for a Moral Compass that I gave at the Glasgow Aye Write festival last month. You can buy the book from my Pandaemonium bookshop. For other talks that I am giving see the Events page. What can the history of morality tell us about the nature of morality? And about ourselves as human beings? Those are the questions at the heart of my book. And those are the questions […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: alasdair macintyre, christianity, ethics, euthyphro dilemma, greek philosophy, greek tragedy, history of moral thought, holocaust, human agency, human nature, modernity, religion, sam harris, viktor frankl

OUT NOW!

May 1, 2014 by Kenan Malik

. My book The Quest for a Moral Compass is published today! Here is the opening section to the book, and an extract that discusses the meaning of morality in the modern world. You can buy The Quest for a Moral Compass from most bookshops, from Amazon or via my Pandaemonium bookstore. The US version of the book comes out in September. . ‘An absolute tour de force. I can imagine it replacing Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy on many a bookshelf […]

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

THE UNRAVELLING OF MORALITY

April 29, 2014 by Kenan Malik

My book The Quest for a Moral Compass is published this week. There has already been an early review in the Tablet from the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who compared the book to Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy: 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. As the subtitle, “a global history of ethics”, makes clear, […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: alasdair macintyre, aquinas, aristotle, emotivism, enlightenment, ethics, history of moral thought, human agency, human nature, liberalism, marxism, modernity, moral autonomy, teleology, virtue ethics

ALMOST HERE…

April 12, 2014 by Kenan Malik

Yes, it’s almost here! My new book, The Quest for a Moral Compass will be published by Atlantic on 1 May. Here, as an introduction, is the opening section of the book. The Quest for a Moral Compass ‘Sing, goddess, of the anger of Achilleus, son of Peleus, the accursed anger which brought uncounted anguish on the Achaians and hurled down to Hades many mighty souls of heroes, making their bodies the prey to dogs and the birds’ feasting; and […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: ethics, fate, free will, greek philosophy, history of moral thought, homer, human agency, kenan malik's books

WHAT DID THE GREEKS EVER DO FOR GOD?

December 11, 2013 by Kenan Malik

I have been publishing on Pandaemonium a series of ‘lost pages’ from The Quest for a Moral Compass, my forthcoming book on the history of moral thought, due to be published in April. In completing the book, I had to cut the original manuscript quite considerably. Much of what has been lost is better off left on the cutting room floor. There are, however, some sections coherent enough to be worth reading. Previous such ‘lost pages’ included abandoned sections on Machiavelli, Descartes, John Locke, Greek cynics, atomists, skeptics and […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: aristotle, christianity, evil, god, greek philosophy, morality, plato, religion, socrates, st paul, unmoved mover

GOD AND EVIL

October 13, 2013 by Kenan Malik

No, not a screed on the evils of religion, but an exploration of how monotheistic faiths (and Christianity in particular) account for evil in the world. It is another in the ‘Lost Pages’ series – sections of The Quest for a Moral Compass, my book on the global history of ethics, that I had to cut from the final version for reasons of space. Previous excerpts were on Machiavelli, Descartes, Locke and Greek cynics, skeptics, atomists and relativists. Since this extract is long, […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: augustine, bible, book of job, christianity, evil, free will, god, original sin, religion, satan

JOHN LOCKE AND THE NOT-QUITE-GLORIOUS REVOLUTION

August 25, 2013 by Kenan Malik

I have been publishing on Pandaemonium a series of ‘lost pages’ from The Quest for a Moral Compass, my forthcoming book on the history of moral thought. In completing the book, I had to cut the original manuscript quite considerably. Much of what has been lost is better off left on the cutting room floor. There are, however, some sections coherent enough to be worth reading. Previous excerpts were on Machiavelli, Descartes and Greek cynics, atomists, skeptics and relativists. This extract is about John Locke and the […]

Categories: History, History of moral thought • Tags: catholicism, english history, free speech, glorious revolution, locke, religious freedom, spinoza

CYNICS, SKEPTICS, ATOMISTS AND RELATIVISTS

June 27, 2013 by Kenan Malik

In completing my book on the history of moral thought I had to cut the original manuscript quite considerably. Much of what has been lost is better off left on the cutting room floor. There are, however, some sections coherent enough to be worth reading. So, I am running an occasional series publishing some of the more cogent ‘lost pages’ from the book. Previous excerpts were on Machiavelli and on Descartes. This extract is on Democritus, Thucydides and Protagoras. The book itself, which […]

Categories: History of moral thought, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: cynicism, democritus, ethics, greek philosophy, history of ideas, history of moral thought, skepticism, thucydides

DESCARTES’ GHOST

May 12, 2013 by Kenan Malik

In completing my book on the history of moral thought I had to reduce the original manuscript by some 30,000 words to get it to a reasonable size. Much of what has been lost is better off left on the cutting room floor. There are, however, some sections coherent enough to be worth reading. So, I am running an occasional series publishing some of the more cogent ‘lost pages’ from the book. The first was on Machiavelli. This extract is on Descrates and […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: descartes, dualism, history of ideas, history of moral thought, human nature, renaissance

ON MACHIAVELLI

April 17, 2013 by Kenan Malik

My book on the history of moral thought is written. In the process, I had to reduced the ms by some 30,000 words. Much of that is better off left on the cutting room floor. But there are also some portions coherent enough to be worth reading. So, I am running an occasional series publishing some of the more cogent sections that are no longer in the book. This first of the ‘missing pages’ is on Machiavelli. ‘A prince never […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: history of ideas, history of moral thought, machiavelli, morality

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 21]: COMMUNISM & CONFUCIANISM

March 27, 2013 by Kenan Malik

This is the last extract from my book in progress on the history of moral thought. The book is now, in fact, no longer in progress, as I have completed it. This might be the final extract, but it is not from the final chapter, but the penultimate one, Chapter 19 (I have already run an extract from chapter 20). Chapter 19 explores moral debate in modern China, particularly after the fall of the dynastic system, and the creation, first […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: china, chinese philosophy, communism, confucianism, democracy, equality, ethics, jiang qing, mao

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 20]: TWO CHINESE PHILOSOPHERS, TWO HISTORICAL FATES

February 28, 2013 by Kenan Malik

This is the penultimate extract from my almost-finished book on the history of moral thought. This is from chapter 6 – another of the chapters I am publishing out of sync – which explores early Chinese philosophy. This extract is about two philosophers, one of whom is well known as China’s most famous thinker – Kongzi, or Confucius as he is known in the West – and the other who has been almost forgotten, even in China, but who should not be […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: china, chinese philosophy, confucianism, equality, ethics, history of moral thought, kong zu, universalism, utilitarianism

A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 19]: BUDDHISM, REASON & FAITH

January 22, 2013 by Kenan Malik

Those who have followed the excerpts I have been publishing from my ‘Book in progress’ on the history of moral thought will know that there were several gaps in the chapters. That was because I left till the end a series of chapters on the Indian and Chinese traditions. These are now almost complete, and I will publish, as before, monthly extracts from each remaining chapter. Some of the chapters have been renumbered as you can see from the complete […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, History of moral thought • Tags: buddhism, ethics, kenan malik's books, religion