"I think the books in the ‘Why It’s OK’ series are great. I’ve read three of them so far (Why It's OK to Want to be Rich, Why It's OK to Ignore Politics, and Why It's OK Speak Your Mind), and they’re some of the best philosophy books I’ve read in years."
Bradford Skow, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy, MIT
Philosophers often build cogent arguments for unpopular positions. Recent examples include cases against marriage and pregnancy, for treating animals as our equals, and dismissing some widely popular art as aesthetically inferior. What philosophers have done less often is to offer compelling arguments for widespread and established human behavior, like getting married, having children, eating animals, and going to the movies. But if one role for philosophy is to help us reflect on our lives and build sound justifications for our beliefs and actions, it seems odd that philosophers would neglect the development of arguments for the lifestyles most people—including many philosophers—actually lead. Unfortunately, philosophers’ inattention to normalcy has meant that the ways of life that define our modern societies have gone largely without defense, even as whole literatures have emerged to condemn them.
Why It’s OK: The Ethics and Aesthetics of How We Live seeks to remedy that. It’s a series of books that provides accessible, sound, and often new and creative arguments for widespread ethical and aesthetic values. Made up of short volumes that assume no previous knowledge of philosophy from the reader, the series recognizes that philosophy is just as important for understanding what we already believe as it is for criticizing the status quo. The series isn’t meant to make us complacent about what we value; rather, it helps and challenges us to think more deeply about the values that give our daily lives meaning.
By Marcus Arvan
March 17, 2025
Conservatives and progressives rarely agree on much—but one thing many agree upon is that it’s not OK to be a moderate. This book shows they are wrong. In Why It’s OK to be a Moderate, Marcus Arvan shows how many of history’s worst evils have resulted from far-right and far-left radicalism, how ...
By Jessica Flanigan
February 28, 2025
Grammatical errors and orthographic mishaps are often played for laughs, but this subtle sanctioning by the sticklerocracy can have real social consequences too. Attention to prescriptive spelling and grammar rules is insidious and harmful. As Jessica Flanigan argues in Why It’s OK to Have Bad ...
By Ronald de Sousa
November 29, 2024
Why It’s OK to Be Amoral argues that self-righteous moralism has replaced religion as a source of embattled and gratuitous certainties. High-minded moral convictions invoke the authority of sacred moral truths, but there are no such truths. In reality, moral passions are rooted in atavistic ...
By Rekha Nath
July 25, 2024
Officially, Western societies are waging a war on obesity. Unofficially, we are waging a war on fat people. Anti-fat sentiment is pervasive, and fat people suffer a host of harms as a result: workforce discrimination, inferior medical care, relentless teasing, and internalized shame. A significant ...
By Sarah C. Malanowski, Nicholas R. Baima
May 13, 2024
If you enjoy video games as a pastime, you are certainly not alone—billions of people worldwide now play video games. However, you may still find yourself reluctant to tell others this fact about yourself. After all, we are routinely warned that video games have the potential to cause addiction and...
By Justin Tosi, Brandon Warmke
November 30, 2023
Every year, millions of students in the United States and around the world graduate from high school and college. Commencement speakers—often distilling the hopes of parents and four years of messaging from educators—tell graduates that they must do something grand, ambitious, or far-reaching. ...
By Jonathan Matheson
September 29, 2023
We tend to applaud those who think for themselves: the ever-curious student, for example, or the grownup who does their own research. Even as we’re applauding, however, we ourselves often don’t think for ourselves. This book argues that’s completely OK. In fact, it’s often best just to take other ...
By Ryan W. Davis
September 29, 2023
Why It’s OK to Own a Gun explores the right to self-defense, but also looks beyond it to what gun ownership fundamentally means in American life. Guns can provide a source of meaning that doesn’t depend on how much money you have or how important your job is. Guns can offer a sense of shared ...
By Keith M. Parsons
July 27, 2023
Why trust science? Why should science have more authority than "other ways of knowing?" Is science merely a social construct? Or even worse: a tool of oppression? This book boldly takes on these and other explosive questions—lodged by ideologues on the left and the right—and offers readers a well ...
By Alfred Archer, Jake Wojtowicz
July 04, 2023
This book offers readers a pitch-side view of the ethics of fandom. Its accessible six chapters are aimed both at true sports fans whose conscience may be occasionally piqued by their pastime, and at those who are more certain of the moral hazards involved in following a team or sport. Why It’s OK ...
By Justin L. Clardy
March 28, 2023
The downsides of monogamy are felt by most people engaged in long-term relationships, including restrictions on self-discovery, limits on friendship, sexual boredom, and a circumscribed understanding of intimacy. Yet, a "happily ever after" monogamy is assumed to be the ideal form of romantic love ...
By Matthew Strohl
December 30, 2021
Most people are too busy to keep up with all the good movies they’d like to see, so why should anyone spend their precious time watching the bad ones? In Why It’s OK to Love Bad Movies, philosopher and cinematic bottom feeder Matthew Strohl enthusiastically defends a fondness for disreputable ...