Ethics Books

Awakening Warrior is a must read for anyone interested in our military and national security. Challans explains how and where the US went wrong in thinking about combat, just war, military ethics, and military training. His unusual background includes experience as both an infantry officer and classically trained philosopher, so he is one of the few people capable of this level of analysis.

His book is a kind of manifesto that provides the philosophical grounding for revolutionizing how we recruit, educate, promote, organize, lead, administer, and operate our national security establishment.

I wonder why the Army has relegated Tim Challans to his current job in Kansas when it could have him at the right hand of decision makers in Washington. Then again, of late we've seen too many talented, intellectually gifted officers pushed to the far corners of the Homeland or out of the military altogether because they didn't seem loyal enough, religious enough, conservative enough, or obedient enough to endure the erosion of a military that they probably love.

A century from now, if we are unfortunate enough to still need armies, the military may be ready to hear what this book has to say.

_Awakening_Warrior_ is a provocative look at the ethics of warfare and a critique of the jingoistic warrior memes that currently substitute for a genuine moral culture in the military. It is worth a careful read. In fact, it should be on the Army Chief of Staff's reading list for field grade officers-- though it would be difficult for some to swallow whole. Nevertheless, the issues covered are crucial to the future of both our country and our corps of officers. There are ideas within that are worth talking about, arguing about, and pursuing.

Those who oppose the War on Terrorism and who are skeptical about the current administration's ethical rationale will find the book's tone agreeable. Others will find it a little off-putting (Chaplains will find it down-right shocking) up front and near the end, but they should stay tuned for frank and adequately supported reasoning behind its main themes.

Challans, a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who taught at West Point and The Command and General Staff College, is also a Kuk Sul Won Black Belt and Doctor of Philosophy. His qualities and qualifications rarely intersect in the officer ranks, and here they provide special insight.

He offers the reader an eclectic, behind the scenes critique of the current moral training that military members undergo. He goes on to describe a radical but conceivable alternative, emphasizing autonomy over the current mix of acronymism, unquestioning obedience to authority, and a hodgepodge of moral narratives, all of which currently take the place of a potential coherent system of education.

Thank the gods someone is finally critiquing the loathsome church-like culture our military has morphed into over the last 20 to 30 years. Professor Challans has written a scathing analysis that calls the bad-faith bluff of so many of the self-deceived leaders who have changed our military into a quasi-religious organization. If the Air Force's cloying advertisements on Armed Forces Network are any indication (the damn things sound word for word like some blathering god-awful prayer; NO KIDDING!!), then the US military has already prepared for the slide over the precipice into the abyss of theocracy. Professor Challans lays out in a systematic philosophical attack exactly how and why, logically, the US military has fallen into grave moral error in letting chaplains take over the teaching of ethics and how religion has suffused almost every detail in leadership theory and doctrine as it is currently practiced in the service. He also, in the process, unveils a supremely blistering critique of the Cheney administration and the formation of the mindset of an American Taliban, showing why America has headed down this path of assumed moral superiority that is in fact morally benighted. The moral affectations of Bush and crew will be the laughing stock of posterity if reason and logic have their say in the future, and Challans is the first real philosopher to show exactly why that will be the case. Highly recommended for everyone who wants to understand why there will be howling laughter in the classrooms of the future about our current era. Every officer of the US military who takes his or her oath to support and defend the US Constitution should read and digest what Challans says in this extended argument. They should do so to avoid being complicit in this nightmare of intellectual regression. The future freedom of our society may depend on people in the high places finally getting it, finally understanding why we are headed for disaster if we continue down this religious road.

The last thing this country needs is a military that thinks it is morally superior to everyone else because of their religion firstly, but for any other reason as well. It is dangerous for the democracy and it is dangerous for the world for any military to assume the ridiculous burden of moral rectitude. Witness the slaughter on 911 if you need further elucidation. Challans argues this point clearly and suggests the military begin systemic changes toward a principled method of ethics instruction, one derived mainly from a deontic perspective devoid of a substratum of apocalyptic metaphysics. He says chaplains need to get out of the ethics business and a system of principle should replace that of authority. Such a principled approach will help us avoid the problems of means/end confusion and is/ought conflation that have plagued the US military for so many years and have obsessed the poor and poorly educated.

Challans is significant in that he is a military insider who understands more than conventional academics what the military is all about and how they fail to inculcate any sense of moral autonomy. As a professional soldier (a highly decorated infantry officer) and a professional philosopher, his logic runs rough shod over the amoral mental meanderings of outsiders like neo-con guru Victor Davis Hanson, free-lancer Ralph Peters, and the other like-minded pundits who have no combat experience but favor torture and other relaxations of the rules of war.

The unfortunate irony here is that Challans will be ignored or attacked by people who think he represents some kind of misguided liberal agenda. His major critics will be those who cannot understand principle and will think it means something completely different. Challans supports reason only, but reason has become the enemy of those with a received world view (chaplains, romanticists, and the great mass of those in need of heteronomous authority). Ever since "faith based" made its way into the modern lexicon, there has been an increasing assault on reason in America as though it were a socialist plot. Challans has no liberal agenda. In fact reason, as he implies, is no friend of left wing extremism. The principles Challans suggests we embrace in reasoning about ethics are already embodied in the well-wrought judgments of those who enumerated the just war tradition as it exists in the Geneva and Hague Conventions. It is a sorry comment on America that we now represent a resistance to that body of thought.

As Bertrand Russell said, "Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid." Challans is recommending we engage in thought.

I actually had the pleasure of reading this book and discussing it with Jason Hill, the author himself. This was part of a course he taught through my university, DePaul. I must say Hill encompasses the very root of global political issues through a ideal, yet logical approach to Cosmopolitanism. Also, he looks great in black! I highly recommend this as a must-read.

I also had the wonderful oppurtunity of taking Dr. Jason D. Hill's multiculturalism class (ISP 200). He teaches the class with two texts, one of them being his own Becoming a Cosmopolitan. Dr Hill is a wonderful person, and his book is almost poetic in nature. He has a profound love for all of humanity and is a very admirable person.

His book inspires you to look beyond the boundaries of race, color, creed, nationality and gender, and accept everyone as constituents of the human race. Beauty is an intrinsic quality of all human beings, according to Hill.

His class at DePaul University and his book has given me a new way of seeing and interacting with other people: through moral cosmopolitanism.

This is a must read to get a full fledged idea of how inherently beautiful humanity is.

This beautifully and poetically written book is perhaps the first of its kind. Hill, I believe has two purposes here. The first is the idea that all fights against racism, ethnocentrism and nationalism are doomed until one begins to question the legitimacy of and then fight against their root foundation: tribalism. It is tribalism that Hill feels is the real danger of the modern world and the root cause of, as he puts it, all the carnage and butchery of human existence.He refers to tribalism as a form of infantilism in which the need for parental protection is sublimated and mapped on to the nation/race or ethnos. He thinks that tribalism is evil because it demarcates a set of what he terms, arbitrary and morally irrelevant attributes of people and then use them as moral criteria in judging their worth and value as human beings. He believes that there is virtue in forgetting where we came from (we, meaning humans in general) not as a way of denying our history, but as a form of benevolence in showing that we are willing to open up ourselves to the process of "becoming" (Hill's coinage); to show that we don't take our starting points in life as absolutely defining us in who we have to be for the rest of our lives. The second purpose his book seems to fulfill is that of providing a psychological way of actually becoming a lover of humanity. He thinks the self has to be re-socilaized all over again and he sort of provides a blue-print for how it can actually be done. His ideas range from the notion of moral masking, to adopting the view of the self as a construct of narratives or stories. The end result he believes is one that will bring about a kind of radical self-invention and real comsmic freedom. This book will require careful reading. The author is a philosopher. But he has tried to write for a broad audience. I can't say for sure whether the world Jason Hill wishes to come into existence is really possible. He gives us litle advice on how on a political level a comsopolitan universe is possible. But on the personal level he has tried to communicate how, as he terms it, a radical soul transformation is possible.

If you're one of the people glued to their TV as the Enron verdict was announced, if you've watched one of the many news programs or read the magazine and newspaper articles about the Enron collapse--or, perhaps even more importantly, if you've done none of the above quite yet, you're really in for a treat!

Most of what you've heard about Enron just touches the surface of some very intriguing questions: Were Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling ruthless monsters or just ordinary people? What could have driven them to commit the kinds of actions that eventually led to the complete collapse of one of the world's most acclaimed and admired companies? Denis Collins's book actually shows that the seeds of the actions that ultimately brought the Enron giant to its knees may not be that uncommon in business organizations!

There was nothing inevitable about Enron's collapse, nor was it something that happened overnight. But how can one effectively deal with ethical dilemmas--even on a much smaller scale--that can truly change the course of an entire organization and the lives of all its employees? What can business leaders ultimately learn from the Enron scandal? How can real people, with real weaknesses, who make real mistakes, take steps to build an organizational culture based on integrity and ethics? Nowhere have I found answers to these questions in a concise, compelling, and convincing manner--until I came across this remarkable book!

Of course this comes as no-surprise: The first time I heard this award-winning author speak about the Enron scandal was on a National Public Radio program that made me stop dead on my tracks and listen eagerly: I was later delighted to discover that the direct, insightful, conversational style of that program is exactly what characterizes the book Behaving Badly! It tackles serious issues in a way that's exciting, meaningful, and offers food for thought: Whether you're a business leader or someone who aspires to become one, whether you're fascinated by politics and current affairs, or simply strive to better tackle the ethical dilemmas in your own life, this book is definitely worth reading! Something tells me you might even pick up a couple of extra copies; after all, this book is sure to make a positive difference in the lives of people you work with or care about. Enron might be what sparked the idea for this book, but its lessons are surely timeless.

This book is great. Very interesting and keeps the reader involved. Very contemporary given the guilty verdicts. Read this book and you will understand why.

The Enron Case has become synonymous with corporate greed, a breakdown of business ethics and destroyed organizational lives. Why another book on this well publicized event? There is a simple and compelling answer. It is because this one is unique.

This is the very best book on this topic in the marketplace. It is well written, well researched and is far more than just another report of what happened. Behaving Badly is written in such a way that the broader issues of business ethics and how they relate to organizational decision-making are presented. To differentiate this book further, Dr. Collins invites readers to place themselves in the role of decision maker. Enron is the backdrop, but the main focus of this superior book is to dissect the elements of the process that led up to the well-known and highly publicized outcomes. By doing so, Dr. Collins has taken the event out of the headlines and given us an incredible teaching/learning tool.

As one who believes that Business Ethics is not an oxymoron, I find the focus of this book to be both informative and useful. It puts the spotlight on how decisions were made at Enron and provides the reader the opportunity to input their own views in a more enlightened, value driven way. Readers who are organizational leaders will be able to test their own ethical framework. It's stimulating and thought provoking.

This book is more than a great read. Corporate leadership in businesses of all sizes should buy Behaving Badly in bulk, distribute them to all of their employees and then gather to discuss the issues and decision points presented in each chapter. It is a fantastic tool to use in focusing attention on core values and their use in corporate decision-making. It would be an excellent catalyst to sharpen the commitment of all members of an organization to its best ethical inclinations.

Training and development professionals should use Behaving Badly to generate discussion and engage in corporate self-discovery. What would you do? What would your colleagues do? How would your organizational culture react to your responses? Extremely important questions. You have to discuss the issues before they become universally understood, embraced and applied.

In addition, Behaving Badly should be used in college classrooms as supplemental reading. It is academically strong and well researched. Students can apply their understanding of ethics to an actual, very familiar case.
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Buy this book. Read it. Think about the issues. Discuss them with colleagues. Buy the book for your boss and leave it on her desk. It is a great opportunity for personal and professional growth and development.

Everyone should read this book. It is definately not just for Doctors. I think knowing what is expected of Doctor and patient alike is very important as far as touch is concerned. I had some questions about what is and is not acceptable in the Doctor's office. This book made that very clear. The book is very easy to read and understand. I would recomend, Behind Closed Doors to everyone.

Everyone should read this book. It is definately not just for Doctors. I think knowing what is expected of Doctor and patient alike is very important as far as touch is concerned. I had some questions about what is and is not acceptable in the Doctor's office. This book made that very clear. The book is very easy to read and understand. I would recomend, Behind Closed Doors to everyone.

Any health professional that thinks they don't need to learn more about this topic is naive. Dr.Redleaf delivers a thought-provoking book that can help doctors better serve their patients and protect themselves.

This book is filled with much insight! Each page contains a profound nugget or two. This book will challenge you to become a healthy person. The questions at the end of each chapter really takes a person to his core beliefs. A must read for men and women.
The book is concise and to the point! Thanks Dr. Pickering!

For men and women alike. I read this book in a college course taught by the author, and I couldn't say enough great things about the class, professor, and the book. It opened my eyes to issues in my life that I did not even know I was struggling with.

This book is full of fascinating insights. Without preaching, it invites the reader to consider the idea put forth. Pickering takes an interesting perspective on the present male condition, pointing out that the male gender role is, in many ways, very restrictive. The insights about men were highly thought-provoking, and the book provided many more thoughts that apply to both genders. There are some fascinating suggestions about religious faith, as well. Even as a female agnostic, I found myself highly engaged by Pickering's thoughts.

This is an absolute must-have for the 3rd grade book club shelf. Riley is a forgetful 4th grader with a life full of challenges. He desperately wants a saxophone, as his class will soon be starting instruments in music. His parents are divorced and there is very little money for such extravagances. In class, his teacher has assigned the students a famous person to study, report on, and ultimately dress up as for her annual "Biography Tea." Riley gets Roosevelt and throughout the story finds connections between Teddy and himself - ultimately transcending his obstacles and getting what he wants most.

This book is SO CLOSE to perfect! I really wish it had more connections between the historical figure biographies and the students studying them. Specifically, I wish the pairing of Riley and Roosevelt worked out better. He ends up having to rely on his friends (was that a theme of Teddy Roosevelt's life?) to accomplish his goal. Some of the connections for the other students are actually quite wonderful - his best friend, Grant, is studying Ghandi and has some brilliant episodes of humility, poverty, and compassion. One of the girls in class studies Helen Keller and her attempts at blindness and deafness add some interesting scenes, however lacking in actual deep connections. It would have made for such great discussion to have some more conflict with the students and their biographies.

I shouldn't take anything away from what is really a wonderful story. My students enjoyed it thoroughly and had wonderful discussions about earning money, emulating their heroes, and friendship. I won't put it in the top 5, but it is definitely a staple of the 3rd grade shelf.

Since I work as a children's librarian, I see plenty of kids coming in for homework on "being" a historical character--so I know this book is very real! As often as not, they have no idea who they are going to portray but end up enjoying the assignment.

A wonderful thing about this book is the many plotlines woven into its 90 pages: Will Riley get his sax? Will this or that kid succeed in the assignment? Will the overachiever triumph this time, too?

The author has a good ear for kid dialogue and a good sense of pacing. All in all an enjoyable book, and at just under a hundred pages long enough for book reports.

Claudia Mills' "Being Teddy Roosevelt" is a small school story with a big punch.

Aimed at the 1st- through 4th-grade reader, "Being Teddy Roosevelt" stars Riley, a fourth-grader who lives with his single mother and isn't always a grade A student, though his intentions are good. You see, he's forgetful and those math worksheets just have a way of disappearing.

When Mrs. Harrow, Riley's teacher, announces the class will be preparing reports on famous historical figures and attending a biography tea in full costume, Riley is concerned. He knows he'll have trouble reading a full biography on his subject: Teddy Roosevelt. He's concerned about being in costume and preparing for the tea. Adding to his biography problems is the announcement about instrumental music in 5th grade. Students have been invited to enroll, but Riley knows his mom can't afford to rent him a saxophone.

Despite his reservations, Riley gets caught up in his subject and learns that Roosevelt never went around an obstacle--instead he faced them head on. Riley decides he'll earn the money himself to buy a sax and his friend Grant, a well-off child with millions of video games, is happy to help. (Grant drew Gandhi for his biography subject--to hilarious results at the tea.) In working towards his goal, Riley earns an A- on his Roosevelt report AND, with the help of Grant and two other school friends, finds a way to get a saxophone. Erika (a pushy Queen Elizabeth) and class brain Sophie (a frustrated Helen Keller) convince Riley to just ask the band director for a sax: "As they got close to the cafeteria, Riley could hear the fifth graders playing a lively march. It made him feel braver inside. Music could do that for you. It could change the way you felt. It could make everything better." (86)

Mills' "Being Teddy Roosevelt" is a realistic tale, with recognizable child characters and a lot of heart. I've always worried about kids not having access to instrumental music, simply because they're too afraid to admit their families can't afford the rental fees. "Being Teddy Roosevelt" combines this issue with an entertaining school story every child will enjoy. R.W. Alley's illustrations are generous and funny and readers will recognize each and every character in the drawings. Highly recommended for elementary audiences.

The CEO of one Fortune 500 company told me that this topic is what keeps him up at night, because the exposure is so incredible when you're responsible for tens of thousands of employees. But I also know from my clients that the problem can still spell disaster for managers of small businesses, non-profits, and even in the government sector. Dr. Bauer summed it up best on page 78 in the section titled "Ninety-Nine Percent Ethical Is Not Enough". This book should be a requisite for anyone in any supervisory capacity.

Glenn Shepard
Author of "How to Be the Employee Your Company Can't Live Without" and "How to Manage Problem Employees"

"Even if Ethics is already a part of your company's training program and you are very familiar with the topic, Chris Bauer's book will provide you with new information to make your company even more successful. It is a must read book for all workers in today's fast moving 21st century!"
L. Forsmo, RN, BS, COHN, CCM
UPS TN District Occupational Health Supervisor

Better Ethics Now is one of the and most powerful and effective books in my library. As the CEO of 2 companies, I know that maintaining the ethics of the company while under pressure from investors to show a bigger profit can be tricky. This book not only identifies the problems, but presents workable solutions for this ever present balancing act. It's a must-read for every business owner or business leader.

This book is great. when we read the book, we find the new possibility.But It is not perfect.He said, Christianity is not seperated from contemporary phiiosophy.Therefore We who believe in God can expoud to the phiiosopher who deny God severely. I respect him to try speaking the the phiiosopher .You,too may assent.

This small work of Tillich's is one of his later publications; deriving from a lecture series in the 1950s, it shows in very short order the combination of Tillich's philosophical and psychological ideas coupled with his view on the authority of biblical scripture in a Christian context.

Tillich states that if humans enter the levels of personal existence which have been rediscovered by depth psychology, there is a collective unconscious in which we participate. This draws together all of our ancestors. Remember here that Tillich speaks in other contexts of the Ground of Being, so ideas such as this one make a consistent sense.

Tillich continues to be criticised for the philosophical language he uses, how radical a departure it seems to a more scripturally-based faith (students in my classes perennially complain of this). However, Tillich takes on the challenge here to look at this contrast in language, arguing that in fact it is impossible to separate out the language and meaning of philosophy from the imagery contained in the biblical texts.

Tillich's overarching idea through his entire body of work is to reconstitute the importance of theology and faith into a culture, academic and secular, who have been drawn away by seemingly more objective, rational enterprises such as science. The Enlightenment project of rationalism over all led to the questioning of orthodoxy -- Tillich maintains the questioning, but draws back in the ideas of God and biblical witness to religion in the terms of the modern academy. Nowhere is that project more clear than in this text.

Tillich means for the connection between biblical religion and philosophy to connect at a personal level. He states that from pimitive religion to the present time, religions have had a personalistic level at the deepest heart of the experience. 'Whenever the holy is experienced, the person-to-person character of this experience is obvious.' However, this changes when considering the Ground of Being, and Being Itself. As Tillich states, when we talk, it is to somebody, but we participate in something. This distinction becomes key to Tillich's overall analysis.

In the last chapters, Tillich examines different ideas of ontology versus the subjective and objective sides of biblical religion. Tillich's final paragraph encapsulates a classic sense of Tillichian analysis -- faith comprises both itself and its negation. Tillich clearly states that there is no particular philosophical framework necessary for salvation -- neither Plato nor Aristotle, neither Kant nor Hegel, and so forth -- but that there is an ontological question implied. The God of the philosophers is the same as the God of the bible (Tillich proclaims, contradicting Pascal).

Many Christians are still unconvinced of the value or necessity of philosophy in religious thinking; indeed, many are positively suspicious. Tillich's work helps to explain the value of connecting the two, even if one does not draw the same conclusions. This is a very short text (a mere 85 pages) that can be read most likely in a single sitting, and represents a good introduction or a good refresher to some key Tillichian ideas.

Paul say's it best in the first chapter of this book..."Religion is a function of the human mind, it is a futile attempt to reach God, it moves from man toward God, while revelation moves from God to man and it's first work is to confound man's religious aspirations."
This sums up the essence of Paul Tillich and his own personal search for Ultimate Reality...but there is so much more!

I have a teen group called Teens Trying To Make a Difference, I ordered it to work with my girls an they really love the book.
It has been a big help with my program. I have 37 girls in my group but i could only afford to buy 9 books. I buy everything for my girls out of my pocket. We are very pleased with them.

YASMIN SHIRAZ IS A INCREDIBLE PERSON,WRITER,AND SPEAKER.I ENCOURAGE WOMEN OF ALL BACKGROUNDS,RACE,AGE AND RELIGION,TO READ THIS BOOK.IT HAS ALSO INSPIRED ME IN MANY WAY'S THAN ONE.I'AM A STUDENT AT EMORY UNIVERSITY FOR MEDICINE.ON MEETING YASMINE SHIRAZ AND READING HER BOOK.I RECOMMEND ,THIS BOOK TO ALL WOMEN OF COLOR.A WONDERFULL AND INSPIRING BOOK TO ALL WOMEN.

This is a really good book, it also gives the young ladies an opportunity to communicate their thoughts ideas and feelings in writing, focusing on courage, determination and self love, which is so important for the 13 to 17 year old age group. I brought this book after meeting Yasmin at a book signing at karabu book store. My daughter read the book, took it to school and shared it with her classmates, they loved the book as well, and so did her teachers, they all said they wanted the book and been working on the testimonies individually and then discussing them as a group. this provides the girls with expression and communication and letting them know they are not alone with issues and concerns they have, also it again emphasizes self love.

This Book Rocks! This is for anyone whos a fan of Adventures from the Book of Virtues.

My children enjoy listening to a story, poem or two during lunch and on car rides. We especially like "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde and the selection from "A Christmas Carol" by Dickens. I am definatly going to invest in the first volume! These stories are entertainng and educational in a way no lecture on virtue can ever be.

My children enjoy listening to a story, poem or two during lunch and on car rides. We especially like "The Selfish Giant" by Oscar Wilde and the selection from "A Christmas Carol" by Dickens. I am definatly going to invest in the first volume! These stories are entertainng and educational in a way no lecture on virtue can ever be.