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  • Moral Selves, Evil Selves: The Social Psychology of Conscience
  • Jennifer Sherman
Moral Selves, Evil Selves: The Social Psychology of Conscience By Steven Hitlin Palgrave Macmillan. 2008. 284 pages. $85 cloth.

Should morality have a place in the study of social life? According to author Steven Hitlin, although it was originally a crucial dimension of the science, in recent times Sociology has veered away from recognizing morality as an important factor influencing social life and social behavior. He argues that this oversight is a serious one, and that "moral ideals and moral prohibitions are not just some goals among others; they constitute the very boundaries of the human self."(12) It is his aim in this book to return morality to the center of the study of individual and social action, through illustrating and explicating the ways in which moral thought permeates most of our self images, goals, and ultimately decisions and behaviors.

In order to do this, Hitlin takes the reader on a journey through a large and complicated literature on the subject, which he attempts to distill into a new understanding of how morality operates in the context of social and individual life. The book contains no new empirical research, although at times Hitlin introduces both his own and borrowed terms and ideas to aid in his endeavor. Much of the first half of the book is mired in defining both these terms and more accessible [End Page 712] ones such as morality and conscience, thus ensuring the reader is equipped with the necessary tools to follow his later arguments.

Among the most important concepts employed are Bright Lines and Bright Lights. The former, borrowed from George Ainslie, refers to internalized moral boundaries that individuals try not to cross. These include our social taboos as well as simple issues of manners and socially inappropriate behaviors. Bright Lights, a complementary concept introduced by Hitlin, represents moral goals toward which we strive and orient our behaviors and senses of self. Together these positive and negative moral signposts help guide much of social thought and action. Yet most of us fail repeatedly throughout our lives to adhere to our own moral rules. It is here that we must perform mental gymnastics in order to justify crossing Bright Lines and failing to approach Bright Lights. Hitlin draws on Jonathan Haidt's work to generate the concept of Lawyer Logic, the biased reasoning we use in order to convince ourselves that despite our seemingly immoral actions we are in fact, moral people. He contrasts this with Scientist Logic, which is the unbiased reasoning that he argues people seldom use to make sense of their moral worlds. Together, Bright Lines, Bright Lights and Lawyer Logic create the process we know as conscience.

With these building blocks in place, the book goes on to explore the workings of conscience, including the social construction of good and evil, and the social evolution of humans as moral beings. He explores how our social setting influences our moral understandings, and why in certain situations we are likely to fail to live up to our moral ideas. He also investigates morality's role in constructing social identities, and the importance of keeping these identities intact during times when our actions are inconsistent with them. He even takes on the argument that humans have evolved to be selfish, arguing instead that for a social species pro-social behavior is an evolutionary advantage.

In order to make and support his arguments, Hitlin draws heavily from others' empirical studies, not all of which are equally rigorous. He attempts to synthesize and elucidate these studies through the use of his conceptual framework. At times, however, his concepts seem too simplistic to easily encompass or explain the complexity of moral life. He also struggles to discuss morality, which he argues throughout is a social construction, in ways that avoid essentialist understandings or assumptions that some sort of objective good and evil exist.

The book at times is dry and repetitive, and ultimately presents more of an amalgamation of other theories than a totally new set of ideas or theories. In the end, it fails to create a completely coherent picture of the social...

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