Born in 1949 in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), A.C. Grayling fell into philosophy early: at twelve, he picked up Plato’s Charmides in a local library, and by fourteen, G. H. Lewes’s Biographical History of Philosophy had convinced him that it would be his vocation. He studied at Sussex, London, and Oxford, where A.J. Ayer and P.F. Strawson were among his teachers, before becoming a professor of philosophy at Birkbeck. In 2011, he founded the New College of the Humanities in London, serving as its first Master.
A prolific writer on ethics, humanism, metaphysics, and the history of ideas–with books including What Is Good?, The Meaning of Things, The God Argument and The Age of Genius–Grayling has spent much of his career asking a deceptively simple question: how should we live?
In 2011, with the publication of The Good Book, Grayling offered his own secular answer. Drawing on more than a thousand texts from across history and cultures, he assembled a Bible-like anthology of wisdom without the theology. Speaking with Slate around the book’s release, Grayling singled out five titles that offer insight “on how to live a satisfying and morally good life.” From Aristotle’s classic treatise on virtue to Dawkins’s rigorous defense of evolution, his selections make a distinctly humanist reading list for the art of living well.
Explore A.C. Grayling’s best books on being good below, and complement with the reading lists of Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Alain de Botton.
A.C. Grayling’s Reading List
The Nichomachean Ethics by Aristotle
“Do not be put off by the forbidding name: Nichomachus was Aristotle’s son, and he prepared this wonderful book for wider dissemination after his father’s death. It is the greatest classic of ethical writing in the Western tradition, a work of powerful thought and fine sentiment, and should be required reading for anyone who can read.” -ACG
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
“Although the whole of this gripping and majestic work is too much for most people in our hasty and hurried age, the (in)famous and important chapters 15 and 16 are an instructive read, for whose sake the whole is worth having. But the whole is worth having, too, for its salutary lessons regarding the fate of a great power, warning inheritors of its mantle what the future can hold.” -ACG
On Liberty by J.S. Mill
“This essay-length book is one of the pillars of contemporary civilization — a lucid account of what liberty truly is, and why it matters. Mill argues that the autonomy of the individual is the necessary condition for good and well-lived lives; respecting the autonomy of others is the necessary condition of morality.” -ACG
The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible by Robin Lane Fox
“It took many hands over a long period to make the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, by processes of editing, textual interweaving, interpolation, rewriting, and periphrasis. Lane Fox explores the history of the Bible’s origins in constructively deconstructive fashion, giving us yet more reason to look with critical eye at the cultural heritage it has fostered. His book teaches us how to evaluate the ‘holy books’ that purport to tell us how to live good lives.” -ACG
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
“What could be a greater show than the story of life on this planet, evolving into myriads of intriguing, exotic, amazing forms over billions of years since the first minute organisms emerged from organic soup? Dawkins knows his stuff and writes superbly about it, giving a compelling biography of the descent of life through the eons. By understanding our place in the natural order, we can better understand what is good for human beings. Those who only know one side of Dawkins should experience the scientist and lover of nature for themselves.” -ACG
(via Slate)
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