"The Geography of Morals" is a work of extraordinary ambition: an indictment of the parochialism of Western philosophy, a comprehensive dialogue between anthropology, empirical moral psychology, behavioral economics, and cross-cultural philosophy, and a deep exploration of the opportunities for self, social, and political improvement provided by world philosophy. 

We live in multicultural, cosmopolitan worlds. These worlds are distinctive moral ecologies in which people enact and embody different lived philosophies and conceive of mind, morals, and the meaning of life differently from the typical WEIRD ? Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic ? person. This is not a predicament; it is an opportunity. Many think that cross cultural understanding is useful for developing a modus vivendi where people from different worlds are not at each other's throats and tolerate each other. Flanagan presses the much more exciting possibility that cross-cultural philosophy provides opportunities for exploring the varieties of moral possibility, learning from other traditions, and for self, social, and political improvement. There are ways of worldmaking in other living traditions ? Confucian, Daoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, Amerindian, and African ? that citizens in Western countries can benefit from. Cross-cultural learning is protection against what Alasdair MacIntyre refers to as being "imprisoned by one's upbringing." 

Flanagan takes up perennial topics of whether there is anything to the idea of a common human nature, psychobiological sources of human morality, the nature of the self, the role of moral excellence in a good human life, and whether and how empirical inquiry into morality can contribute to normative ethics. The Geography of Morals exemplifies how one can respectfully conceive of multiculturalism and global interaction as providing not only opportunities for business and commerce, but also opportunities for socio-moral and political improvement on all sides. This is a book that aims to change how normative ethics and moral psychology are done.

Dedication
Part I: Variations
1. On Being "Imprisoned by One's Upbringing"
2. Moral Psychologies and Moral Ecologies
Bibliographical Essay
Part II: First Nature
3. Classical Chinese Sprouts
4. Modern Moral Psychology
5. Beyond Moral Modularity
6. Destructive Emotions
Bibliographic Essay
Part III: Collisions
7. When Values Collide
8. Moral Geographies of Anger
9. Weird Anger
10. For Love's and Justice's Sake
Bibliographical Essay
Part IV: Anthropologies
11. Self-Variations: Philosophical Archaeologies
12. The Content of Character
Bibliographical Essay
Notes
Acknowledgments
References
Index

Owen Flanagan, James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Co-director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy, Duke University

Owen Flanagan was born and raised in Westchester County, New York. He is the author of the classics Varieties of Moral Personality (1991) and Consciousness Reconsidered (1992). He lives in Durham, NC, where he is currently James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Co-director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at Duke University.