The ethics of political power
“From this we learn that a wise prince sees to it that never, in order to attack someone, does he become the ally of…
Ideas to change your life
Essays, interviews and ideas from New Philosopher.
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Just a game?
Any new entertainment technology worth its salt is greeted as a portent of impending doom. In the 18th and 19th centuries, moralists fretted that…
A recipe for disaster
Western industrial civilisation is eating itself stupid. Cookery programs bloat the television schedules, cookbooks fill the bookshop windows, and celebrity chefs hawk their own…
Travel: making the most difference
Zan Boag: I’d like to start with a question about the ethical issues that arise from travelling in general, and tourism in particular. The…
Fake news
“The essence of bullshit,” argued philosopher Harry Frankfurt in his 2005 book On Bullshit, “is not that it is false but that it is…
Get a life!
“Life,” the American journalist and author Elbert Hubbard once quipped, “is just one damned thing after another.” Like many of the best one-liners, it’s…
How to live (like a Stoic)
People think that philosophy is about pondering, and ideally answering, questions like the following ones: Does life have meaning? What is a life worth…
The end of progress
Zan Boag: Contemporary society places great weight on the importance of progress and growth. What does it mean for a society to progress? David…
Why not change your mind?
We frequently change our minds – most often about trivial things like the evening’s dinner plans, but sometimes about ideas of great importance to…
The call to your own true adventure
Think, for a moment, of who you are today, right now, reading this wherever you are – waiting in an airport, sprawled across a…
Rat race to the afterlife
So you’ve spent your life accumulating money – you’ve worked hard, invested wisely; every waking moment has been devoted to moneymaking. Well, almost every…
Are we the barbarians?
The ancient Greeks invented a whole bunch of important stuff: democracy, tragedy, philosophy (if you ignore India and China, which you shouldn’t), and more…
