Person
Every book Alex O’Connor recommended on podcasts
Across 3 podcasts. Every show Alex O’Connor appears on, in one place — not just one.
Alex O’Connor’s most recommended books
- Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill
- Ethics in the Real World by Peter Singer
- Justice by Patrick Savidan
- Mill on Utilitarianism by Roger Crisp
- Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
- Paradox by Jim Al-Khalili
- Practical ethics by Peter Singer
- The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J. Sandel
- A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
- Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
Alex O’Connor is a podcast guest who has appeared on Modern Wisdom to discuss philosophy, ethics, and thought experiments. Throughout these appearances, O’Connor has recommended and discussed several notable books across different subjects. For anyone looking to read philosophy, he described Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics as the most useful book of philosophy for anyone to read even after over 2,000 years. When discussing science and mathematics, he mentioned Jim Al-Khalili's Paradox as a description of various paradoxes. For readers exploring ethics and utilitarianism, O’Connor recommended Roger Crisp's book on John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism, noting it serves as the best introduction and is worth reading alongside Mill's original text. Additionally, he recommended Peter Singer's Practical Ethics as a solid introduction to questions about equality and ethics. To understand the flaws of meritocracy, O’Connor recommended Michael J. Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit, which seeks to undermine the entire idea of meritocracy. Furthermore, he recommended Michael J. Sandel's Justice as a good place to start for anyone looking to get into ethics. Through these recommendations, O’Connor has highlighted foundational texts that help listeners navigate complex moral, philosophical, and scientific inquiries.
Books recommended by Alex O’Connor
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Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill is a foundational philosophical text that articulates the ethical framework emphasizing the greatest happiness principle and the moral significance of actions.
Recommended“it's a if you're trying to read utilitarianism by mill it's worth reading roger crisp alongside him it's just the best kind of introduction to it”
Where to get it
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Ethics in the Real World
Ethics in the Real World by Peter Singer is a collection of accessible essays exploring pressing moral issues, poverty, animal welfare, and applied ethics.
Recommended“ethics in the real world is also a good collection of essays by peter singer as well”
Where to get it
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Justice
Justice by Michael Sandel and Patrick Savidan is a widely acclaimed exploration of moral philosophy that examines contemporary dilemmas through the lens of political theory and ethical frameworks.
Recommended“i would recommend if you're just looking to get into ethics michael sandell's justice is a good place to start”
Where to get it
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Mill on Utilitarianism
Mill on Utilitarianism by Roger Crisp is a detailed philosophical analysis and commentary on John Stuart Mill's classic ethical writings.
Recommended“if you're interested in the discussions on utilitarianism that we've been having then roger crisp's book mill on utilitarianism is the analysis that's worth reading and i think if you want to read utilitarianism by john stuart mill it's worth reading it alongside crisps analysis or reading crisps analysis first just to make sure you kind of understand everything that”
Where to get it
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Nicomachean Ethics
The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle is a foundational work of ancient Greek philosophy that examines virtue, human flourishing, moral character, and the ultimate pursuit of the good life.
Recommended“I mean, especially really with regards to something like Aristotle's ethics, you know, the Aristotle's book, The Nikameakian Ethics, is I would say, you know, even after over 2,000 years, the most useful book of philosophy for anyone to read.”
Where to get it
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Paradox
Paradox by Jim Al-Khalili is a captivating exploration of science's greatest intellectual stalemates, offering clear explanations of famous paradoxes that challenge our understanding of physics and logic.
Recommended“there's a there's a book by Jim Al KH called Paradox which is a description destion of so-call paradoxes”
Where to get it
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Practical ethics
Practical ethics by Peter Singer is a prominent philosophy book that addresses applied ethical issues, including the definition of equality, the moral status of animals, and complex dilemmas surrounding life and death.
Recommended“you can also read peter singer's practical ethics where he he goes over and kind of discusses what does equality mean when is it okay to kill you know like all of these kind of these kind of questions it's a really good introduction”
Where to get it
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The Tyranny of Merit
The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J.
Recommended“there's a book by uh the harvard professor michael sandel called the tyranny of merit which seeks to undermine the entire idea of meritocracy on these grounds”
Where to get it
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A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking's landmark popular science book has served as an iconic introduction to cosmology and black holes for millions of readers worldwide.
Discussed“Steven Hawking at the end of a brief history of time quite famously, I wish I could recite it from memory. It's so beautiful.”
Where to get it
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Animal Liberation
Animal Liberation by Peter Singer is a foundational philosophy text that galvanized the modern animal rights movement by arguing against the moral permissibility of animal exploitation.
Discussed“and the main thing that got me thinking about it was Peter singers Burke Animal Liberation Peter singer is probably the most important philosopher in my life”
Where to get it
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Better Never to Have Been
Better Never to Have Been by David Benatar is a philosophical work that sets forth a rigorous anti-natalist argument regarding the harms of coming into existence.
Discussed“so one way to establish this conclusion is to say that like david benatar does the famous anti-natalist who who wrote a wonderful book called better never to have been that has a wonderful discussion on the nature of suffering”
Where to get it
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Dominion
Dominion by Tom Holland is a sweeping historical work examining how Christianity shaped Western culture, secular values, and modern moral frameworks.
Discussed“so you get Tom Holland the historian who has popularized this idea in his book Dominion that all of Western Civilization is essentially Christian without realizing it”
Where to get it
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Eating Animals
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer is a non-fiction investigation into the ethics of meat production, factory farming, and the environmental impacts of modern diets.
Discussed“there's a book called eating animals should we stop I can't remember who it's by but he made this point he was like in the introduction or something he says I bet you assume what my conclusion is here”
Where to get it
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Euthyphro
Discussed“the biggest ethical dilemma that that somebody who thinks that ethics is grounded in god has is known as the euthyphro dilemma comes from plato's euthyphro”
Where to get it
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Language, Truth and Logic
Discussed“it was originally put forward by aj ayer in the 20th century in a groundbreaking book called language truth and logic which stated that the only things that can be meaningful are those which are either empirically verifiable”
Where to get it
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Laws
Discussed“Even even someone like Plato who we quite often think of as having a a very strong stable consistent set of made out of marble well as he if you if you you know is one of his earlier works which is both a kind of political treatise but also a theory of the human mind is called the republic”
Where to get it
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Leviathan
Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes is a foundational 1651 political treatise arguing that human life in a state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, and that peace requires absolute submission to a strong central authority.
Discussed“Why does Thomas Hobbes write the Leviathan? Because he had to flee him being a royalist during the English Civil War. he has to flee to to France because of the English civil war and he writes this tract about how we should all submit to a to authoritarian dictator essentially”
Where to get it
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Meditations
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is a collection of personal journals and philosophical notes written by the Roman emperor during his military campaigns, offering profound insights into Stoic philosophy, self-discipline, and personal endurance.
Discussed“and understand that marcus aurelius's meditations where you need to have like someone or someone along for the ride who can actually explain what's going on”
Where to get it
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Notes from Underground
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a profound psychological novella that explores the tormented inner life, resentment, and irrational impulses of an isolated protagonist living in nineteenth-century Russia.
Discussed“Dosstofki, his notes from the underground, one of the most famous of his books because it's it's so short and easy to read, originally contained a chapter which essentially argued for the necessity of Christianity as Joski saw it, but it was censored and and taken out and so you end up with this sort of quite fully nihilistic tract.”
Where to get it
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The Denial of Death
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning philosophical and psychological study that argues human behavior is fundamentally driven by an unconscious terror of mortality and the subsequent cultural mechanisms created to deny it.
Discussed“This is essentially a version of Ernest Becker's denial of death hypothesis, which famously suggests that the motivation for a great deal of human behavior is at least human behavior outside of immediate sensory concerns like eating and stuff like that. Anything that humans engage in on a societal level, on an abstract level, is ultimately motivated by an apprehension”
Where to get it
The other 8 books Alex O’Connor recommended or discussed, ranked
- The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
- The master and his emissary by Iain McGilchrist
- THE PLAGUE by Albert Camus
- The Rebel by Albert Camus
- The Republic by Plato
- The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
- The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God by Justin Brierley
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Appearances
Other mentions (2: passing, ad reads, own books)
“And we just, you know, the myth of Sisphus is is one of the first things that Camu writes along with the the stranger.”
“Ernest Becker wrote a book called 'The Denial of Death,' which encapsulates this idea.”