With the possible impending departure of Moral Reasoning, FM asked several campus luminaries which books on ethics students should read in place of a required course. Check ’em out (from the library, that is).
Harvard College Professor and Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science Harry R. Lewis:
I learned to think about them from being deeply troubled by deeply troubling books. Kafka, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky in particular.
Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker:
“The Possibility of Altruism,” Thomas Nagel
“Created from Animals,” James Rachels
“The Expanding Circle,” Peter Singer
“The Moral Animal,” Robert Wright
“Passions Within Reason,” Robert Frank
“Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Woody Allen
“Enemies: A Love Story,” Isaac Bashevis Singer
“The Legacy of Raizel Kaidish” (in the collection “Strange Attractors”), Rebecca Goldstein
Buttenwieser University Professor Stanley Hoffmann:
As for books, there were, on the philosophical side, the writings of Kant, and on the literary side, the great novel by Roger Martin du Gard, “Les Thibault” (about Europe and the First World War), and the plays and novels of Albert Camus, especially “The Plague.” Also, later, Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and “1984” and Arthur Koestler’s “Darkness at Noon,” and Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros.”
