Altruism

Author : Matthieu Ricard
Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 0316208213
Total Pages : 824 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Altruism written by Matthieu Ricard and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the international bestseller Happiness makes a passionate case for altruism -- and why we need it now more than ever. In Happiness, Matthieu Ricard demonstrated that true happiness is not tied to fleeting moments or sensations, but is an enduring state of soul rooted in mindfulness and compassion for others. Now he turns his lens from the personal to the global, with a rousing argument that altruism -- genuine concern for the well-being of others -- could be the saving grace of the 21st century. It is, he believes, the vital thread that can answer the main challenges of our time: the economy in the short term, life satisfaction in the mid-term, and environment in the long term. Ricard's message has been taken up by major economists and thinkers, including Dennis Snower, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and George Soros. Matthieu Ricard makes a robust and passionate case for cultivating altruistic love and compassion as the best means for simultaneously benefitting ourselves and our society. It's a fresh outlook on an ardent struggle -- and one that just might make the world a better place.

Author : Kristen Renwick Monroe
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691058474
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Heart of Altruism written by Kristen Renwick Monroe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1998-07-21 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is all human behavior based on self-interest? Many social and biological theories would argue so, but such a perspective does not explain the many truly heroic acts committed by people willing to risk their lives to help others. Kristen Monroe boldly lays the groundwork for a social theory toward altruism by examining the experiences described by altruists themselves.

Author : Charles Daniel Batson
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195341066
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Altruism in Humans written by Charles Daniel Batson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authored by the world's leading scholar on altruism, and based on decades of research, this landmark work is an authoritative scholarly resource on the theory surrounding altruism and its potential contribution to better interpersonal relations and a greater society. --Book Jacket.

Author : William MacAskill
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698191102
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Doing Good Better written by William MacAskill and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us want to make a difference. We donate our time and money to charities and causes we deem worthy, choose careers we consider meaningful, and patronize businesses and buy products we believe make the world a better place. Unfortunately, we often base these decisions on assumptions and emotions rather than facts. As a result, even our best intentions often lead to ineffective—and sometimes downright harmful—outcomes. How can we do better? While a researcher at Oxford, trying to figure out which career would allow him to have the greatest impact, William MacAskill confronted this problem head on. He discovered that much of the potential for change was being squandered by lack of information, bad data, and our own prejudice. As an antidote, he and his colleagues developed effective altruism, a practical, data-driven approach that allows each of us to make a tremendous difference regardless of our resources. Effective altruists believe that it’s not enough to simply do good; we must do good better. At the core of this philosophy are five key questions that help guide our altruistic decisions: How many people benefit, and by how much? Is this the most effective thing I can do? Is this area neglected? What would have happened otherwise? What are the chances of success, and how good would success be? By applying these questions to real-life scenarios, MacAskill shows how many of our assumptions about doing good are misguided. For instance, he argues one can potentially save more lives by becoming a plastic surgeon rather than a heart surgeon; measuring overhead costs is an inaccurate gauge of a charity’s effectiveness; and, it generally doesn’t make sense for individuals to donate to disaster relief. MacAskill urges us to think differently, set aside biases, and use evidence and careful reasoning rather than act on impulse. When we do this—when we apply the head and the heart to each of our altruistic endeavors—we find that each of us has the power to do an astonishing amount of good.

Author : David Sloan Wilson
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300189494
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Does Altruism Exist? written by David Sloan Wilson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that altruism is an inherent factor of group functionality and discusses how studying group function can promote positive changes to the human condition.

Author : Oren Harman
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393339998
Total Pages : 462 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Price of Altruism: George Price and the Search for the Origins of Kindness written by Oren Harman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-06-20 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the intellectual journey of eccentric American genius George Price, who tried to answer the evolutionary riddle of why people are nice, and eventually gave away all his belongings and took his own life in a squatter's flat.

Author : Barbara Oakley
Publisher : OUP USA
ISBN 13 : 0199738572
Total Pages : 494 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Pathological Altruism written by Barbara Oakley and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-01-05 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pathological Altruism is a groundbreaking new book - the first to explore the negative aspects of altruism and empathy, seemingly uniformly positive traits. In fact, pathological altruism, in the form of an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one's own needs, may underpin some personality disorders. Hyperempathy - an excess of concern for what others think and how they feel - helps explain popular but poorly defined concepts such as codependency. The contributing authors of this book provide a scientific, social, and cultural foundation for the subject of pathological altruism, creating a new field of inquiry. Each author's approach points to one disturbing truth: what we value so much, the altruistic "good" side of human nature, can also have a dark side that we ignore at our peril.

Author : Peter Singer
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300182414
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Most Good You Can Do written by Peter Singer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument for putting sentiment aside and maximizing the practical impact of our donated dollars: “Powerful, provocative” (Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times). Peter Singer’s books and ideas have been disturbing our complacency ever since the appearance of Animal Liberation. Now he directs our attention to a challenging new movement in which his own ideas have played a crucial role: effective altruism. Effective altruism is built upon the simple but profoundly unsettling idea that living a fully ethical life involves doing the “most good you can do.” Such a life requires a rigorously unsentimental view of charitable giving: to be a worthy recipient of our support, an organization must be able to demonstrate that it will do more good with our money or our time than other options open to us. Singer introduces us to an array of remarkable people who are restructuring their lives in accordance with these ideas, and shows how, paradoxically, living altruistically often leads to greater personal fulfillment than living for oneself. Doing the Most Good develops the challenges Singer has made, in the New York Times and Washington Post, to those who donate to the arts, and to charities focused on helping our fellow citizens, rather than those for whom we can do the most good. Effective altruists are extending our knowledge of the possibilities of living less selfishly, and of allowing reason, rather than emotion, to determine how we live. Doing the Most Good offers new hope for our ability to tackle the world’s most pressing problems.

Author : Robert W. Sussman
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9781441995209
Total Pages : 440 pages
Book Rating : 4.0X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Origins of Altruism and Cooperation written by Robert W. Sussman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-08-02 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about the evolution and nature of cooperation and altruism in social-living animals, focusing especially on non-human primates and on humans. Although cooperation and altruism are often thought of as ways to attenuate competition and aggression within groups, or are related to the action of “selfish genes”, there is increasing evidence that these behaviors are the result of biological mechanisms that have developed through natural selection in group-living species. This evidence leads to the conclusion that cooperative and altruistic behavior are not just by-products of competition but are rather the glue that underlies the ability for primates and humans to live in groups. The anthropological, primatological, paleontological, behavioral, neurobiological, and psychological evidence provided in this book gives a more optimistic view of human nature than the more popular, conventional view of humans being naturally and basically aggressive and warlike. Although competition and aggression are recognized as an important part of the non-human primate and human behavioral repertoire, the evidence from these fields indicates that cooperation and altruism may represent the more typical, “normal”, and healthy behavioral pattern. The book is intended both for the general reader and also for students at a variety of levels (graduate and undergraduate): it aims to provide a compact, accessible, and up-to-date account of the current scholarly advances and debates in this field of study, and it is designed to be used in teaching and in discussion groups. The book derived from a conference sponsored by N.S.F., the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Washington University Committee for Ethics and Human Values, and the Anthropedia Foundation for the study of well-being.

Author : Donald W. Pfaff
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0199377464
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Altruistic Brain written by Donald W. Pfaff and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Unlike any other study in its field, The Altruistic Brain synthesizes into one theory the most important research into how and why - by purely physical mechanisms - humans empathize with one another and respond altruistically."--Jacket.