I just bought in hardcover (new through the B&N Marketplace for $2.50)
Jacob Needleman's Why Can't We Be Good?. (The link is to the Nook ebook version.) This is the description of the book:
Quote:
The widely respected social philosopher embarks on his most gripping and broadly appealing work, asking the ultimate question of human nature: Why do we repeatedly violate our most deeply held values and beliefs?
After nearly forty years of weighing humanity's deepest dilemmas-working in settings ranging from university and high school classrooms to corporate offices and hospitals-bestselling author, philosopher, and religious scholar Jacob Needleman presents the most urgent, deeply felt, and widely accessible work of his career.
In Why Can't We Be Good? Needleman identifies the core problem that therapists and social philosophers fail to see. He depicts the individual human as a being who knows what is good, yet who remains mysteriously helpless to innerly adopt the ethical, moral, and religious ideas that are bequeathed to him.
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I haven't started the book yet (I have a lot of other books ahead of it in the TBR pile), but every time I see it in the TBR pile it is calling me to start reading it.
The question the title poses particularly struck me as being an appropriate question in light of recent events -- the Trump election, the sexual harassment charges, the Trump approach to world problems, among others. I don't know what answer Needleman provides, but it will be fascinating to find out.