Habit and Morality (Part Three), 9-16-2010

[Continued from Habit and Morality (Part Two), 9-16-2010. sch 4/4/23.] 

I drew up a list, matching words to action.

1. Montaigne's essays "On Books" and "On Experience". I have never read anything on the use and limits reading books as his "On Books." Every bibliophile must give this a read. "On Experience" contains a level-headed exposition of a philosophical life.
2. Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance". It is about morality and its conflict with the world.
3. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Western European's start on ethics.
4. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. I hesitate here just because Mill's writing style, as I recall it, is rather thick. Classical liberalism depends on this book.
5. Nietzsche - The Anti-Christ. Everyone professing Christianity needs to read its keenest critic.
6. William James - "The Pluralistic Universe." Values in a world with competing values.
7. John Locke - The Second Treatise on Civil Government. The root of American political thinking.

I cannot many others, but that is a start. From these, I suggest The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Catholic Encyclopedia (hey, For about half a millennium the Catholic Church was philosophy central), and Wikipedia (a place to start, anyway). 

Remember, ideas lead to action. I hope the action taken will be where we treat one another as human beings deserve to be treated, one that elevates us and our fellow human beings.

Good luck, read and think and see what you can do to make this a better world.

sch

[Continued in Habit and Morality (Part Four), 9-16-2010. sch 4/4