Doing the Right Thing: Cultivating Your Moral Intelligence [Paperback]

Aaron Hass (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1999

At one time or another everyone has thought, "I know what I should do. but I can't do it." By strengthening our moral self. Dr. Hass says, we can. In this revolutionary guide for following that inner moral compass -- and teaching children to rely on theirs -- Hass helps readers to release their inherent goodness. He offers new ways of looking at guilt (which can sometimes be good), emotions (and how they can get in the way of doing what's right), values (why they do not all have equal merit), fairness (how you can be fair even if life isn't), and giving (why keeping a scorecard is wrong).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Aaron Hass is a professor of psychology, but it's his experience as a clinical psychologist--heading off suicide and gluing marriages back together--that informs Doing the Right Thing. Resolutely unconcerned with abstract questions, and deliberately setting aside such tough moral chestnuts as abortion and capital punishment, he offers instead a straightforward guide to two intermingled issues. First, why it is, despite the attractions of selfishness, that we are generally better off when we do what we believe to be right? And second, how, on the most practical level, can we do ourselves and everyone around us the favor of becoming better people?

This is refreshing stuff, especially from someone in a profession that has done its best to treat notions like self-restraint, self-sacrifice, and moral character as distasteful jokes. For Hass, they are nothing less than keys to a cure. The book's treatment of philosophical issues is light; occasional references to Kant or Aristotle are strictly pro forma and essential subjects such as psychological egoism--the popular view that all human action is "really" self-interested--are dismissed with almost flippant ease. But it's worth reading just for the anecdote about what happened when researchers put seminarians under tight deadlines to finish a sermon on the Good Samaritan--and then ensured that, in order to present their work, they would have to pass by a shabbily dressed man who was coughing and groaning as if in pain. Doing the Right Thing also contains other well handled discussions of such matters as whether God is a necessary foundation for workable value and the way that generosity and courage, just like dishonesty and cruelty, are subject to a powerful snowball effect. --Richard Farr --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Preachy books on self-improvement may be commonplace, but this one offers uncommonly sober, sound moral guidelines drawn from the author's experiences in clinical practice and fatherhood. On the subject of conscientious behavior, Hass (The Aftermath, etc.), a professor of psychology at California State and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, outlines how and why to follow the Golden Rule and to practice greater sensitivity, fairness, empathy and kindness when dealing with friends and strangers alike. Hass urges his reader to cultivate moral sensitivity: "I want you to be able to analyze a complex situation and answer the question, 'What's the right thing to do?'" Occasionally redundant though rarely patronizing, Hass imparts moral wisdom in straightforward, clear prose. The book is well organized and replete with helpful references to everyday encounters. Hass draws liberally on anecdotes from philosophical, religious and literary sources ranging from Kant to Rabbi Harold Kushner. Repeatedly, he insists that principled behavior is a societal obligation. Furthermore, he claims, a shared sense of rectitude can make the world a better place. Toward the end, Hass emphasizes the importance of exercising one's "moral muscle," arguing that ethical behavior must be practiced. With that in mind, 30 short moral dilemmas are provided for group discussion or private consideration. Written in the style of The Book of Questions, these ethical puzzles are thought-provoking if not wholly original. The book's last section comprises similar conundrums, this time aimed at young children and adolescents. In a market saturated with shallow tomes on "family values," this is a serious sermon worth reading. Editor, Julie Rubenstein; agent, Richard Pine. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (July 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671034871
• ISBN-13: 978-0671034870
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,676,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Practical Guide for Confronting Hard Choices, December 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Doing the Right Thing: Cultivating Your Moral Intelligence (Paperback)

Imagine a real-life dilemma: your spouse gets diagnosed with a serious mental illness. Soon afterward your only parent develops incurable cancer. No one else is available to share caregiver duties. You can't hire assistance. What do you do?

I was reading Aaron Hass's Doing the Right Thing when that happened to me. Three lives were helped.

A gem like this often goes underappreciated because it defies categorization. It has no pretensions to academic debate and it doesn't promote the author's particular moral views. Hass begins from the assumption that no ethicist can anticipate all the problems ordinary people face. So he offers a practical framework for the reader to make ethical choices in difficult and unexpected situations.

Hass accomplishes this goal with admirable deftness. Although himself a rabbi, he writes for people of all beliefs. An entire chapter develops his argument that ethics require no religious basis. Careful readers find Aristotle's ethics behind Jane Austen's comedies. A similarly disarming accessibility here cloaks Spinoza, Kant, and Russell.

Later sections move beyond theory to conditions where real human beings make ethical choices. Hass notes what circumstances are most likely to lead people into actions that go against their stated beliefs. Sidestepping technical discussions of cognitive dissonance, he accepts these phenomena as human nature and offers useful guidelines for minimizing them. The most original discussion handles circumstances where conflicting ethical obligations compete.

This is the rare book about morality that respects the reader and acknowledges the complexity of real life. Doing the Right Thing: Cultivating Your Moral Intelligence won't tell you what your values should be. It won't assume that all moral systems are equally valid either. If that sounds intriguing and almost contradictory then give it a closer look. You'll be well rewarded.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars relevant, insightful and compassionate!, July 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Doing the Right Thing: Cultivating Your Moral Intelligence (Hardcover)

i have read many books about ethics and morality. Donig The Right Thing is simply the best and most useful of them all. Although it is very intelligently written, the book does not address abstract philosophical issues. Instead, it deals with everyday relationships and quandaries. I found it absolutely relevant to my own life. The book is filled with warmth and compassion. (The author is not reluctant to describe his own shortcomings along the way.) Despite trying to lead the reader onto a more just path Dr. Hass never preaches. Nor is he judgmental. He simply wants us to do a little better, and be a little better. Doing The Right Thing is filled with extraordinary insights, interesting real life stories and examples, as well as very practical suggestions. I wholeheartedly recommend the book to all!

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Untrustworthy guide to morals, July 20, 1999

By 

Bob Fancher (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doing the Right Thing: Cultivating Your Moral Intelligence (Paperback)

As a practicing therapist, and a writer whose claim to fame is a book arguing that psychotherapy is fundamentally a moral endeavour that needs more moral self-scrutiny, I had hoped Hass's book would be something I could give to patients, who often need guidance on how to think and act ethically. I will not recommend this book to anyone, however. I would consider that an unethical insult to their moral intelligence.

One can scarcely doubt the author's sincerity, perhaps not even his good character. However, no one with any reasoning ability could take this book seriously. It preaches, dogmatically; it does not argue or present evidence. Hass shows no great ability as scholar, scientist, historian, or ethical theorist. He seems not even to understand the questions an advocate of moral behavior (morally) must address if he wishes to (morally) deserve to be taken seriously. A few aspersions toward "liberalism," dogmatic references to "scientific findings" that are neither footnoted nor admitted to be controversial at best, and some flat false historical claims constitute his argument, which is itself full of logical holes. E.g., that "Millenia ago, moral prescriptions were not seen as deriving from external authorities such as religion or social coercion." This is simply false, unless Hass knows something no one else knows that he isn't telling, and his only evidence is a quote from two psychologists (not historians) who claim, altogether wrongly, that Plato and Aristotle held such a view.

The sort of ethics Hass would have us practice did not fall into disrepute because of moral turpitude, but for serious intellectual, economic, cultural, and social reasons. Anyone wanting to resurrect them must, if he is to deserve a hearing, address those serious issues. E.g., we now hold it the duty of a CEO to maximize profits; that is his ethical duty to his shareholders. Hass doesn't seem to have a clue as to the serious considerations that lead to this kind of view of ethical behavior, which is altogether at odds with traditional notions of ethics, and which is the same sort of view that lead to many of the things he simply pronounces morally wrong.

In short: dogmatic, often false premises and logically flawed reasoning. A very bad book by a (probably) good man.