I’m getting ready to review Joshua Greene’s “Moral Tribes” on
my main Wordpress blog (recommended by Harvard undergrad vlogger John Fish),
but I’ll preview it with the Time special edition coffee table book “The Science
of Good and Evil”, edited by Edward Feiesenthal and D. W. Pine, with a lot of
leadership from Jeffrey Kluger, 96 pages.
There is an interesting chapter by Richard Jerome on whether
animals have morality. Well, capcuchin monkeys and bonobo chimps do, as do
dogs, Sand tiger sharks, however, cannibalize
their weaker siblings in the “womb” before they are born.
The first chapter, by Kluger et al, takes up some of the
well-known moral puzzles (The Sinking Lifeboat, the Crying Baby, the Runaway Trolley
and the switch problem). Subsequent
chapters look at the physiology of evil, in terms of the structure of the brain
(Bundy, Holmes, etc). There are also biographies
of Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler (who was quite spoiled and incompetent in
practical things as a boy, rather telling). Yet there is evidence that even the worst can
eventually develop a moral compass.
There is an important chapter (p. 34) on voluntarism by Kate
Rope, “Good Deeds, Good Health, and Good Life”.
There is discussion of caregiving and compassion fatigue, but there is a
general impression that relatively open (and not overly selective) volunteering
is a good thing for most people.
This morning (April 27), Smerconish (CNN) interviewed author
Anthony Mazarrelli who (along with Stephen Trzeciak and Cory Booker) authored “Compassionomics”,
published Studer Group. A lot of this is
about whether medical practitioners care, but a lot of people will survive
challenging illnesses and cancers if they know others care personally. This is a bit of a change from how things
were when I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, when less could be done.
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