Böcker av Todd May

You're probably never going to be a saint. Even so, let's face it: you could be a better person. We all could. But what does that mean for you?   In a world full of suffering and deprivation, it's easy to despair--and it's also easy to judge ourselves for not doing more. Even if we gave away everything we own and devoted ourselves to good works, it wouldn't solve all the world's problems. It would make them better, though. So is that what we have to do? Is anything less a moral failure? Can we lead a fundamentally decent life without taking such drastic steps?   Todd May has answers. He's not the sort of philosopher who tells us we have to be model citizens who display perfect ethics in every decision we make. He's realistic: he understands that living up to ideals is a constant struggle. In A Decent Life, May leads readers through the traditional philosophical bases of a number of arguments about what ethics asks of us, then he develops a more reasonable and achievable way of thinking about them, one that shows us how we can use philosophical insights to participate in the complicated world around us. He explores how we should approach the many relationships in our lives--with friends, family, animals, people in need--through the use of a more forgiving, if no less fundamentally serious, moral compass. With humor, insight, and a lively and accessible style, May opens a discussion about how we can, realistically, lead the good life that we aspire to.   A philosophy of goodness that leaves it all but unattainable is ultimately self-defeating. Instead, Todd May stands at the forefront of a new wave of philosophy that sensibly reframes our morals and redefines what it means to live a decent life.

Should we bring new humans into the world? Or would it be better off without us?These days it’s harder than ever to watch TV, scroll social media, or even just sit at home looking out the window without contemplating the question at the heart of philosopher Todd May’s new book: Should we go extinct? (And if so, should we go sooner rather than later?) Facing climate destruction and the revived specter of nuclear annihilation even as humans continue to cause untold suffering to our fellow creatures on planet Earth, we are forced each day to contemplate whether the world would be better off in our absence. That the answer is unclear underscores our need for a book just such as this one.In this timely, fascinating examination, May, a renowned philosopher and advisor to the acclaimed TV show The Good Place, reasons both for and against the continuation of our species, trying to help us understand how, and whether, the positive and negative tallies of the human ledger are comparable, and what conclusions we might draw about ourselves and our future from doing so. He discusses the value that only humans can bring to the world and to one another as well as the goods, like art and music, that would be lost were we no longer to be here. On the other side of the ledger, he walks us through the harm we cause to nature and the non-human world, seeking to understand if it’s possible to justify such suffering against our merits, and if not, what changes we could make to reduce the harm we cause.In this moment of rising pessimism about the future, and as many people wonder whether they should bring children into such a dark and difficult world, the questions May tackles in Should We Go Extinct? are hardly theoretical. As he explores the complexities involved with changes such as an end to factory farming, curbing scientific testing of animals, reducing the human population, and seeking to develop empathy with our fellow creatures, May sketches a powerful framework for establishing our responsibilities as a species and gives hope that we might one day find universal agreement that the answer to his title question should be no.

This book examines the political perspective of French thinker and historian Jacques Rancière. Rancière argues that a democratic politics emerges out of people's acting under the presupposition of their own equality with those better situated in the social hierarchy. Todd May examines and extends this presupposition, offering a normative framework for understanding it, placing it in the current political context, and showing how it challenges traditional political philosophy and opens up neglected political paths. He demonstrates that the presupposition of equality orients political action around those who act on their own behalf--and those who act in solidarity with them--rather than, as with the political theories of John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Amartya Sen, those who distribute the social goods. As May argues, Rancière's view offers both hope and perspective for those who seek to think about and engage in progressive political action.

What makes for a good life, or a beautiful one, or, perhaps most important, a meaningful one? This book offers a fresh way of thinking about these questions. It offers a refreshing way to think of an age-old question, of, quite simply, what makes a life worth living.

We see nonviolent resistance all over today s world, from Egypt s Tahrir Square to New York Occupy. Although we think of the last century as one marked by wars and violent conflict, in fact it was just as much a century of nonviolence as the achievements of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

This volume presents a comprehensive and accessible analysis of the most recent developments in European thought.

How democratic progressive politics can happen and how it is happening in very different political arenas

Shows how we might think about and, more importantly, live our lives in view of the inescapability of our dying. This book considers the possibility that our mortal deaths are the end of us, and asks what this might mean for our living.

An accessible and stimulating introduction to one of the most popular and influential thinkers of the years, Michel Foucault. It examines each of Foucault's key works such as: "Madness and Civilization," "The Archaeology of Knowledge," "The Order of Things," "Discipline and Punish" and the multi-volume "History of Sexuality."

Focuses on Ranciere's central political idea that a democratic politics emerges from the presupposition of equality.

We live in an age of economics. We are encouraged not only to think of our work but also of our lives in economic terms. In many of our practices, we are told that we are consumers and entrepreneurs. What has come to be called neoliberalism is not only a theory of market relations; it is a theory of human relations. Friendship in an Age of Economics both describes and confronts this new reality. It confronts it on some familiar terrain: that of friendship. Friendship, particularly close or deep friendship, resists categorization into economic terms. In a sustained investigation of friendship, this book shows how friendship offers an alternative to neoliberal relationships and can help lay the groundwork for resistance to it.

"This tactical reading of Lyotard, Deleuze, and Foucault accomplishes a lot. May provides something most of us did not expect by now-a truly fresh understanding of the energies and ethical concerns of some of the most important thinkers of this century."-Thomas L. Dumm, Amherst CollegeThe political writings of the French poststructuralists have eluded articulation in the broader framework of general political philosophy primarily because of the pervasive tendency to define politics along a single parameter: the balance between state power and individual rights in liberalism and the focus on economic justice as a goal in Marxism. What poststructuralists like Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard offer instead is a political philosophy that can be called tactical: it emphasizes that power emerges from many different sources and operates along many different registers. This approach has roots in traditional anarchist thought, which sees the social and political field as a network of intertwined practices with overlapping political effects. The poststructuralist approach, however, eschews two questionable assumptions of anarchism, that human beings have an (essentially benign) essence and that power is always repressive, never productive.After positioning poststructuralist political thought against the background of Marxism and the traditional anarchism of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Proudhon, Todd May shows what a tactical political philosophy like anarchism looks like shorn of its humanist commitments-namely, a poststructuralist anarchism. The book concludes with a defense, contra Habermas and Critical Theory, of poststructuralist political thought as having a metaethical structure allowing for positive ethical commitments.