L I TERATURE IN RE VIE W: MO R A L T R I B E S
Continued from page 13
prescription, however, at least partly abandons the rigor of
his diagnosis. The proposal, which he calls “deep pragmatism,”
is a modern version of Bentham and Mill’s utilitarianism, and
consists of getting as many people as possible to consider,
in a sophisticated way, what contributes most to human
happiness, and to “figur[e] out what works best, putting our
prejudices aside and instead gathering evidence about various
policies and practices in the real world.”
But he has already explained that we all selectively filter
out the facts that contradict our established views, and that
many of us belong to tribes that hold some sacred value
higher than mere happiness, and he offers no new and extraordinary method of making people face facts they don’t
want to face. He even admits that “In the end there may
be no argument that can stop tribal loyalists from heeding
their tribal calls.” He also reveals–much to his credit–a vision
of morality that transcends the very biological theories he
espouses for much of the book, in this lovely phrase, “out of
evolutionary dirt grows the flower of human goodness,” and
in the more philosophic assertion that “morality is more than
what it evolved to be.” But what exactly is the nature of this
flower, and what nurtures it best?
Richard Barbieri, Ph.D., is
developing programs in
mediation and conflict management for schools, while
serving as a community
mediator and President of the
New England Association
for Conflict Resolution. In
addition to Connections
Quarterly, he writes regularly
for Independent School,
and has published with
ACResolutions and online at
www.mediate.com. You may
contact him at rbarbieri@
singularresolutions.com.
Moral Tribes contains these and other insights into various
aspects of moral thinking, but in the end, it doesn’t seem to
carry us much farther down the moral alphabet than Rodney
King’s simple “Can’t We All Just Get Along?” l
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