Palgrave Macmillan, 2017
DESCRIPTION
This book explores the steady decline in the status of the individual in recent years and addresses common misunderstandings about the concept of individuality. Drawing from psychology, neuroscience, technology, economics, philosophy, politics, and law, White explains how and why the individual has been devalued in the eyes of scholars, government leaders, and the public. He notes that developments in science have led to doubts about our cognitive competence, while assumptions made in the humanities have led to questions about our moral competence. In this book, White goes on to argue that both of these views are mistaken and that they stem from overly simplistic ideas about how individuals make choices, however imperfectly, in their interests, which are multifaceted and complex. In response, he proposes a new way to look at individuals that preserves their essential autonomy while emphasizing their responsibility to others, inspired by the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the legal and political philosophy reflected in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. This book explains how individuality combines both rights and responsibilities, reconciles the popular yet false dichotomy between individuality and society, and provides the basis for a humane and respectful civil society and government.
REVIEW
J.S. Taylor, Choice, 55(9), May 2018:
White (philosophy, College of Staten Island, CUNY) argues that respect for the individual is currently in decline, and that if this continues the results could be catastrophic. … He displays an impressive grasp of the broad literature that is relevant to his project-ranging from philosophy to psychology and economics … . Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates; general readers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A much better and more complete index than the one "auto-generated" for the book can be found here.
RELATED ARTICLES/BLOG POSTS (Note: These go back a ways, because this book has been on my mind for a long time.)
"Are We Individual or Social--And Is This the Right Question?", Psychology Today, March 8, 2011
"David Brooks' false dichotomy regarding autonomy and sociality," Economics and Ethics, June 2011
"David Brooks on moral individualism: The false dichotomy lives on," Economics and Ethics, September 2011
"David Brooks on same-sex marriage, freedom, and individualism in The New York Times," Economics and Ethics, April 2013
"David Brooks on deference for incompetent authority in the wake of Ebola fear," Economics and Ethics, October 2014
"Do Romantic Relationships Imply a Loss of Self? Should They?", Psychology Today, September 20, 2017
