MORAL COURAGE: Ethics in Action

Defining moral courage as "the quality of mind and spirit that enables one to face up to ethical challenges firmly and confidently," Kidder, president of the Institute for Global Ethics, offers a treatise on the "courage to be moral" replete with examples and analysis. He offers a step-by-step guide, including checklists, on how to apply moral values to difficult situations, understand risks (more often career troubles and social ostracism than physical harm) and endure hardships brought on by moral courage itself. He explores how and why people can fail to be morally courageous, and ways that they can learn to behave better, offering anecdotes that range from an investment firm employee choosing to confess a potentially costly mistake to a married couple refusing to let unmarried guests sleep together, despite prevailing cultural norms. The book is weaker on the philosophical side. An extended distinction drawn between physical and moral courage ends up muddy and sometimes patronizing toward those whose courage entails only physical risk; it appears almost as if moral courage were a white-collar courage and physical courage a less exalted blue-collar sort. The analysis of how moral action and values interlock is never thoroughly convincing, since the former seems to cover almost anyone who claims to stand on principle (such as the boss who cut his workers' wages by $3 an hour), but there is enough thoughtfulness here for a substantive introduction to a worthwhile subject. (Jan.)