Moral Tribes
Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“Surprising and remarkable…Toggling between big ideas, technical details, and his personal intellectual journey, Greene writes a thesis suitable to both airplane reading and PhD seminars.”—The Boston Globe
Our brains were designed for tribal life, for getting along with a select group of others (Us) and for fighting off everyone else (Them). But modern times have forced the world’s tribes into a shared space, resulting in epic clashes of values along with unprecedented opportunities. As the world shrinks, the moral lines that divide us become more salient and more puzzling. We fight over everything from tax codes to gay marriage to global warming, and we wonder where, if at all, we can find our common ground.
A grand synthesis of neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy, Moral Tribes reveals the underlying causes of modern conflict and lights the way forward. Greene compares the human brain to a dual-mode camera, with point-and-shoot automatic settings (“portrait,” “landscape”) as well as a manual mode. Our point-and-shoot settings are our emotions—efficient, automated programs honed by evolution, culture, and personal experience. The brain’s manual mode is its capacity for deliberate reasoning, which makes our thinking flexible. Point-and-shoot emotions make us social animals, turning Me into Us. But they also make us tribal animals, turning Us against Them. Our tribal emotions make us fight—sometimes with bombs, sometimes with words—often with life-and-death stakes.
A major achievement from a rising star in a new scientific field, Moral Tribes will refashion your deepest beliefs about how moral thinking works and how it can work better.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Greene, director of Harvard University's Moral Cognition Lab, discusses modern debates over individualist versus communitarian thinking and presents his readers with a roadmap to what he considers a "more reason-based" and utilitarian morality. With a humorous, relaxed tone, Greene stacks piles of evidence from well-researched studies onto his theory of modern-day morality. Having spent most of his academic career on the study of morality, Greene foresees the questions his readers have and systematically addresses every doubt and concern. As he mixes 20th-century philosophical moral treatises with neuroscience and psychological studies many of which were undertaken by his colleagues in the field of moral psychology Greene's role as educator shines through; his writing is clear and his examples simple yet intriguing. He also makes earnest recommendations for self-critique and examination. However, in the act of critiquing problematic visions of human morality to his readers, he pushes them toward adopting his own utilitarian brand of thinking. Greene's work will be useful to anyone looking for contemporary support for utilitarian morality, but has the potential to alienate those who aren't already sympathetic to his position.
