in 2004 ravven received an unsolicited $500,000 grant from the ford foundation to write a book rethinking ethics. that book, "the self beyond itself: an alternative history of ethics, the new brain sciences, and the myth of free will" was published by the new press in may, 2013. it is an extended and multidisciplinary inquiry into moral agency: why we are moral, why and when we are not, and how to get people to be more moral. ravven concludes with her own theory of moral agency inspired by the philosophy of spinoza, which she updates to reflect contemporary understandings of how the brain/mind works in moral thinking and action. the book is accessibly written for a generally educated audience rather than just for specialists.