Everywhere you look, human relations are rife with conflict. 

 

It’s true among friends, businesses, communities, and nations. Sure, many disputes involve mainly power or money. But many others involve morals and values. 

     Unfortunately, we often find it hard to engage rationally with people whose morals and values differ from ours. Epithets fly and shouting matches ensue. Or we just give up and declare, “There’s no point in arguing—we just have different values.” 

     But solving interpersonal and social problems requires that we listen, explain, and argue to closure with people who don’t happen to agree with us. 

     Fortunately, there are frameworks and tools, developed over many centuries, for thinking and persuading others about moral and value-laden issues. They can help us assess whether—and when—to focus mainly on good intent, or effects, or overall benefit, or trying to act like a good person. 

     There is a deep literature about the psychology of moral issues, and the mental and emotional habits that often lead us astray. Another body of research explores why liberals and conservatives think differently about morals and value issues. There is learning about how a person’s various values fit together—and why they do. And there is much to say about the key value of “fairness”—and what it really means in different contexts. 

     I’ve written How Do You Know What’s Right? to explore these issues, and to provide readers with tools for more self-aware and effective values-based decision-making and engagement about moral issues.