Moral Tribes

Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them

By: Joshua Greene

Narrated by: Mel Foster

Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

An award-winning teacher and scientist, Greene directs Harvard University’s Moral Cognition Lab, which uses cutting-edge neuroscience and cognitive techniques to understand how people really make moral decisions. Combining insights from the lab with lessons from decades of social science and centuries of philosophy, the great question of Moral Tribes is this: How can we get along with Them when what they want feels so wrong to Us?

Ultimately, Greene offers a set of maxims for navigating the modern moral terrain, a practical road map for solving problems and living better lives. Moral Tribes shows us when to trust our instincts, when to reason, and how the right kind of reasoning can move us forward.

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.

©2013 Joshua D. Greene (P)2013 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Excerpt from “My Favorite Things,” music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. © 1959 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Copyright renewed. Williamson Music owner of publication and allied rights throughout the world. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Critic reviews

“Moral Tribes is a masterpiece—a landmark work brimming with originality and insight that also happens to be wickedly fun to read. The only disappointing thing about this book is that it ends.” -Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology, Harvard University; author of the international bestseller Stumbling on Happiness

Great deep dive into morality

It was really very interesting book. My first in this area and I was nicely surprised how intriguing it was. It was deep and complicated topic told with patience and as easily as possible. It was so interesting that I am going to go through it again after some time.
Narrator was absolutely fine, comfortable to listen to.

Robust defense of Utilitarianism

Even though almost all of the books and science experiments cited within the text I have heard elsewhere through other Audible books and lectures, I still found this book edifying since the author, a philosopher, knows how to explain complicated science better than most science writers by explaining complex thoughts into easy digestible pieces and can tie the story together with an overriding narrative.

All knowledge about our place in the universe goes from the particular to the group and the group to the population. As for the development of our moral understanding the author argues similarly our moral understanding goes from "the me" to "the us" and "the us" to "the other". Homo Sapiens developed a method to get us out of our pure solipsism by allowing us to understand there is an advantage in cooperation within our closest group and that there will be competition between the us and the them.

The author's main thesis in the book is defending Utilitarian philosophy (or as he sometimes calls it deep pragmatism), a system of philosophy which starts with the premise the overall happiness should be maximized. He uses the 'trolley problem' and breaks it down and shows how some of our brain states correlate with his thesis of 'automatic mode' verse 'manual mode', intuition v. reason.

I'm in the minority in the trolley problem. I never would have turned the switch in the first version, and I definitely would not drop the man onto the tracks to save lives in the second version. That made some of the givens the author gives not so clear cut for me.

Overall I am an Utilitarian (after all I'm in general for anything which Ayn Rand despised as much as she did Utilitarianism), but the author really doesn't end the argument. Ultimately he's begging the question in how he defines happiness. I think that almost everyone thinks that their belief system leads to the greatest happiness overall. We always rationalize (at least I do) our beliefs that way. Adolph Hitler rationalized his acts and claimed that the world would thank him for what he did. It's the rare person who wants to create harm overall just for the sake of creating harm. We always rationalize and fill in the blanks within our own mind (the author will even say that in the text and cite some research that supports that).

This book is a real find for anyone who hasn't read much in this field. He links all the science with multiple philosophies and gives a great narrative like a good philosopher should. I think the author always tries to be fair when he dances around political differences. But, he did one thing that really irritated me. He calls those who deny the truth about climate change "climate skeptics'. That's just a misuse of the word 'skeptic'. Skeptics will keep an open mind and look at the data and the story that abduction (inference to the best explanation) tells. People who don't accept climate change do not deserve the respect the word 'skeptic' connotes.

In summary, the book is a very good book, well explained, good science and provides a good way to think about morality through the lens of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills. I don't think he proves utilitarianism is the ultimate philosophy but he gives good arguments while it might be the best overall.

Great representation of utilitarian philosophy!!

I loved the book, I always try to figure out ways to increase collaboration between people of the world. This book made the problems of teaching to this goal more clear and also had some useful recommendations.

Deep Pragmatism & Utilitarianism

Would you listen to Moral Tribes again? Why?

Yes! The book makes a case that morality is a tool for we-versus-me, and seeks out a set of tools to sort out the decisions that need to be made by distinct groups (our we versus your we).

What was one of the most memorable moments of Moral Tribes?

Building a case for meta-morality, the author describes the nuance of having a lack of common currency between many groups. If we can't appeal to a common higher authority (God, leader), figuring out which side is right, and a basis for compromise is really tricky. The author's notion of "let's do what works best" has a profound basis.

Have you listened to any of Mel Foster’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Nope - this was my first time. He's definitely a professional - clear voice.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Utilitarianism 2.0

Any additional comments?

This book dives deeper into philosophy than I had expected, but this is a fresh look at one of the driving problems in our interconnected world.

Good inquiry and relevant answers

I would have loved it more with less obsession with the salvation of utilitarianism. Worth the time in any case

Very well thought out informed an insightful book

lots of info to digest, makes sense though, found it got me to self assess my moral structure. very dense, makes sense when analysing such subjects. would like to get the essence into a digestible pill for the masses as this is an important work for our times.

Good Science, Bad Philosophy

Greene really does a piss poor job of summarizing arguments against his position. he also does a poor job framing other philosophical positions that run counter to his. He says that "When we refer to rights, we are only referring to names we have given our moral intuitions" then goes on to invoke his own concept of 'rights' as if no one else has thought this out. Worst of all is his take on politics. I say this as a socially liberal person with an otherwise pragmatist view. Greene is totally unfair in his characterization of the political left and right. He equates all conservatives with republican Christian fundamentalists. He thinks every view they hold is based on 'unexamined tribal intuitions' while characterizing liberals as a scientifically enlightened paragon of humility.

Read The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt if you want to understand the neuroscience and psychology of the moral sense.

Philosophical, convincing, understandable

If picking apart the internal mechanisms to describe and understand our moral leanings sounds interesting then this book should suite you well. At a time when the moral convictions of many groups are coming together, sometimes in confusing or confrontational ways, the explanations of this pointedly critical author added some welcomed understanding and direction on what to make of my beliefs. The balance between philosophy and practical application was also nice.

Essential Reading for Our Times

Hands down the most important book I have read in the last decade. The book dealt with some pretty complex issues in a very smooth and easily comprehensible manner. Greene provides numerous compelling examples to illustrate his point about utilitarianism being a plausible solution to THE postmodern problem - the tragedy of "common sense" morality...

An Excellent Read Re: the Issues We Face Today!

I could not stop listening to this excellent book. Complex ideas are explained well throughout.