What's Wrong With Morality?: A Social-Psychological Perspective

by C. Daniel Batson

Overview

What's Wrong with Morality? considers morality not only as a solution but also as a problem. It focuses on moral action, not simply moral judgment. To account for our moral failures, it considers the range of motives and emotion (many of which are not intrinsically moral) that can lead us to act ethically—or not.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199355549
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/16/2015
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

C. Daniel Batson is an experimental social psychologist. He received a Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton University in 1972, and taught at the University of Kansas until his retirement in 2008. For over 30 years, his research has focused on prosocial motivation, with particular emphasis on altruistic and moral motivation, and related emotions. He has published well over a hundred research articles and chapters on these topics, as well as two books on altruism. This is his first book on morality.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: What's Wrong

Chapter 1: Moral Maladies

Chapter 2: Personal Deficiency

Chapter 3: Situational Pressure

Part II: What's More

Chapter 4: Moral Motivation

Chapter 5: Why Is Moral Integrity Rare, Hypocrisy Common?

Chapter 6: Moral Emotion

Part III: So What

Chapter 7: Moral Combat

Chapter 8: Treating Our Moral Maladies

Reprise

References

Editorial Reviews

"Batson's starting point is the observation that moral life suffers from maladies: very often, we fail to live up to our own moral standards. ... According to Batosn, the real role of interpersonal morality is not to control our own behaviour, but that of others: "[...] we want to be treated morally, not to be moral oursevles" (177). ... When Batson looks for ways to strengthen moral behaviour at the end of his book, he does not really believe that true moral motivation can be substanially strengthed." — Cor van der Weele, Ethical Perspectives

"Scholars and students of moral psychology will find much of interest in this rich, sweeping, and engaging discussion of our 'moral maladies'."
—Vanessa Carbonell, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"[This] book is highly useful for graduate students and moral scholars who want to understand whether individual differences in human behavior are a consequence of diverse person characteristics, situational constraints, or a combination of the two... This book offers compelling evidence that what Batson refers to as moral hypocrisy is likely to be more common than moral integrity."
—PsycCRITIQUES

"This book will serve as a great introduction to the current state of moral psychology. Written in clear and often witty prose, this volume is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, especially those in psychology and philosophy, or the general reader interested in the study of moral psychology."
—Metapsychology

From the Publisher