Rethinking Goodness
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Description
Arguing that a psychological basis for ethics can be found in human motivation, Rethinking Goodness proposes a naturalistic ethics that transcends the conflict between liberalism and authoritarianism—the conflict between freedom at the price of narcissism and morality at the price of coercion. The authors offer a third option, an ethic broader than liberalism's pursuit of the personal, that avoids jeopardizing, as do authoritarian positions, the centrality of individual autonomy.
Michael A. Wallach is Professor of Psychology and Lise Wallach is Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Duke University.
Reviews
"This is a persuasive, scholarly case for the desirability and feasibility of concern for the common good—a fully serious and assessable answer to the 'minimalist' morality decried by culture critics like Lasch and Bloom, that avoids the authoritarian trap, and it offers an example of 'secular humanism' at its best. A psychologically and philosophically imaginative and sound response to the moral and morale disorder of our times. " — M. Brewster Smith, University of California at Santa Cruz