Professor Ruth Grant wants to understand "goodness" including why it is so easy to identify and yet so hard to define.
"The idea of ‘goodness' is an elusive one," said Grant, professor of political science and philosophy and senior fellow in the Kenan Institute for Ethics. "How do we know what constitutes goodness? Can we identify goodness only in the face of evil? Are the things we consider ‘good' altruism, courage, justice, patience always good?"
She recently convened a conference to address these questions, with scholars from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, religion, American studies, literature and classical studies.
The conference served as a gathering point for scholars to comment on and discuss ideas and draft chapters for a forthcoming book on goodness, edited by Grant and written by faculty members from Duke and elsewhere. The project is sponsored by the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and the new book, In Search of Goodness, will serve as a complement to Grant's 2006 title, Naming Evil, Judging Evil.
In Search of Goodness will address topics such as whether or not there is a universal concept of goodness; the relationships between goodness and innocence, friendship, and altruism; the phenomenon of moral transformation; goodness in the context of global crises; and how our emotions and consciousness affect our concepts of morality and goodness.
Grant said she sees the book as a way to deepen the discussion of goodness while addressing a growing attention to the subject. "There has been an increase in the emphasis on ethics, and particularly on goodness, in both the academy and general culture," she said.
Examples are numerous, she said. Scientists in neuroscience and evolutionary biology are mapping the brain to determine which structures are associated with good behavior. Colleges and universities are reassessing their role in the moral development of their students. Even foundations are funding studies to determine whether being good will make a person happy, Grant said.
Grant is building an interdisciplinary approach to the project. "Our approach involves working outside of particular disciplines; drawing on pop culture and everyday experience to inform the problems we will consider; and blending psychological, political, and philosophical considerations into our analyses and interpretations," she said.
Contributors include Michael Gillespie (Political Science, Duke University), Amelie Rorty (Social Medicine, Harvard University), Philip Costanzo (Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University), David Wong (Philosophy, Duke University), Peter Euben (Political Science, Duke University), Stanley Hauerwas (Divinity, Duke University), Romand Coles (Community, Culture & Environment, Northern Arizona University), and Grant.
Ultimately Grant hopes the completed book will stimulate further conversation and reflection beyond our usual ways of thinking about goodness.
"I would like to see us move beyond some of our familiar conceptual dichotomies, ‘egoism vs. altruism,' for example, to reach a better understanding of goodness," she said. "We tend to take for granted that we know what it means and how it operates."