What Money Can't Buy by Michael J. Sandel

What it is about:

Professor Sandel poses the question of whether there are things that cannot be reduced to a monetary value or an "utility function" (my words) and proceeds to look at areas where fairness, justice or even basic human dignity is involved. While it is clear that he comes from deeply ethical values and takes positions based on those, he does not shy away from digging deep in the "why" of those positions and how they can be challenged or justified, always respecting the reader's own moral decisions. In the process he provides a robust set of principles and rigorous thinking that anybody can use and would be well advised to use.

Why it changed my thinking:

I have a set of moral values that mostly I grew up with as I suspect most of us do. In my case, I grew up in Franco's Spain. Moving to the US and adopting it as my home, then meeting people from all parts of the world, all different in their beliefs and ways of life made me realize that some of those values were really specific idiosyncrasies of my upbringing or straight out old fashioned prejudices. Yet, others felt like they were a solid principle to stand on. The question was then to be able to tell apart which was which and a lifelong effort to refine and improve the values to live by. This book articulated for me a lot of the "hunches" I felt on how to think about these deep topic and expanded my "introspection toolset" for that effort.

Where to get it:

(Note, if you buy from the links here, I get a little commission back)