A question of values

the long version

A century ago, the greatest dangers we faced arose from agents outside ourselves: microbes, flood and famine, wolves in the forest at night. Today the greatest dangers-war, pollution, starvation- have their source in our own motives and sentiments: greed and hostility, carelessness and arrogance, narcissism and nationalism. The study of values might once have been a matter of primarily individual concern and deliberation as to how best to lead the "good life." Today it is a matter of collective human survival. Is we identify the study of values as a branch of philosophy, then the times has arrived for all women and men to become philosophers-or else.