Mikhail Valdman (VCU): A Theory of Wrongful Exploitation. From the Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, Matthew Talbert (WVU): Implanted Desires, Self-Formation, and Blame. Jason Kawall (Colgate): In Defense of the Primacy of Virtues. Just desserts: Brad Hooker asks if the idea of desert belongs at the foundation of ethics. A review of What Is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being by Richard Kraut. A review of Freedom and Value: Freedom's Influence on Welfare and Worldly Value by Ishtiyaque Haji. A review of The Autonomy of Morality by Charles Larmore. A review of The Moral Skeptic by Anita M. Superson. Research suggests power tends to bend a person’s moral outlook, making one less likely to believe bending the rules is acceptable behavior. A review of The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy by Melvin Rogers. The study "There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification" calls unsubstantiated beliefs "a serious challenge to democratic theory and practice". Is a smarter world a better world?: John Gray reviews The Idea of Justice by Amartya Sen (and more and more). With a billion people living on less than $1 a day, is buying luxury shoes ethical? Eating meat isn't bad for the planet — it's our system of raising the animals that's wrong.

From THES, Matthew Reisz interviews George Scialabba, the Harvard provocateur with independent views who fears the death of the public intellectual. An age of illiteracy is at hand, right? Andrea Lunsford isn't so sure. A review of The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at War by Alexander Waugh. Would liberals really be happier if Obama were more like LBJ? For Jacques Verges, no client is indefensible — but does his defence of a top Khmer Rouge leader undermine the principles he has spent his career proclaiming? More and more and more on Spent: Sex, Evolution and the Secrets of Consumerism by Geoffrey Miller. A review of Hunting Evil: the Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Hunt to Bring Them to Justice by Guy Walters. A review of New Studies of Old Villains: A Radical Reconsideration of the Oedipus Complex by Paul Verhaeghe. A review of In Search of Civilization: Remaking a Tarnished Idea by John Armstrong (and more and more and more). A buyer’s guide to happiness: Money can improve your life, but not in the ways you think. Lies of Mass Destruction: The same skewed thinking that supports a Saddam-9/11 link explains the power of health-care myths (and more and more). Down with tHE CAPS LOCK KEy and other less-than-useless things.

Taking Liberties: Alex Ross on reviving the art of classical improvisation. Will improvisation trivialize classical music — or save it? A review of Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music by Amiri Baraka. A review of The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music by Richard Williams (and more and more). Kind of Blue: Why the best-selling jazz album of all time is so great. Can jazz be saved? The audience for America’s great art form is withering away. A review of Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us About Suffering and Salvation by Stephen Nichols. Christine King, a lifelong Elvis devotee, takes us on an autobiographical journey signposted by the songs and life story of the rock'n'roll icon. Did Woodstock kill rock 'n' roll? Andy Battaglia on essential reading from future-shock music literature. A review of Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music by David Suisman. From PopMatters, a series on Casablanca Records. Sex in the USA: An article on male sexuality in Springsteen’s American Dream. Oliver Miller offers up a philosophical exploration of one-hit wonders. From Cracked, here's a history of rap music; and here are 7 songs from your grandpa's day that would make Eminem blush.

Europe’s rise owed much to exceptionally bellicose international politics, urban overcrowding, and frequent epidemics. In the vast graveyard that is Europe, there lies a sacred plot reserved for the Weimar Republic. The EU must not give succour to self-interested revisionists who equate Stalinism and Nazism to smear the left. A review of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West by Christopher Caldwell (and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more; and more at Bookforum). How has Muslim hysteria gone unchallenged? Pankaj Mishra on the "Eurabia-mongers". Parag Khanna has a vision of Europe in 2030: A Postmodern Middle Ages. A look at how EU member-states are rejecting integration just when sovereignty worldwide is entering a new period of relativity. From FT, how to make Europe’s military work — but a lack of ambition leaves Europe in the slow lane. Europe is tilting right as America goes left: An interview with political scientist David Cameron. For all their extra vacation days as compared with the US, workers in the EU are keeping pace — or better — in terms of productivity. Thomas Darnstadt on the future of European democracy.