Books like Moral Disengagement — picked by fans

Yale professor John Bargh is a wonderful writer and a great storyteller.

We all know that our minds operate at both a conscious and an unconscious level, but not until I read this book did I realize how much happens at the unconscious level and that this helps explain everything from how getting a flu shot affects our attitudes toward immigration to how having power can induce us to try to unfairly advantage people we perceive to be like us at the expense of “out-group” members. 

Love this book! This is a foundational behavioral ethics book, written by two giants in the field—psychologists Bazerman of Harvard Business School and Tenbrunsel of Notre Dame.

It is research-based, yet very accessible to the novice, directly addressing, as the title indicates, why people sometimes mess up and how they can avoid it. It introduces the reader to cognitive biases and other influences that can fool people’s brains into making poor moral choices.

Blind Spots was an invaluable resource for Cara Biasucci and me for many of the 150 or so videos we have produced for Ethics Unwrapped.

This is the best book I’ve read about the human dreams and failings of white-collar criminals.

With Soltes’ direct access to headline names—like Bernie Madoff, Jeffrey Skilling, and Marc Drier—I steeped myself in his profound research on our myths about “nurture vs. nature,” whether companies are inherently “good” or “bad,” and whether criminal behavior inside companies is performed by fundamentally “bad” people. The book taught me about the psyche of embezzlers and the conditions inside companies that influence their stealing. That knowledge took me beyond my own familial myths about George Hormel’s embezzler and enhanced my understanding of why he likely did his stealing.

The book also outlined the great impact of white-collar crime on families, companies, and our economy, leading me to a more nuanced understanding of southern Minnesota in the 1920s. History and humanity are woven together in whole cloth, and Soltes’ work allowed me to speculate about… show more.

I know and admire Paul Woodruff, a noted philosopher at the University of Texas. His worldview has been shaped by his experiences as a young soldier in the Vietnam War and he has spent much of his professional life trying to make sense of those experiences.

The book begins with Woodruff remembering a time, 50 years ago, when he was lying in ambush in Vietnam, pondering the question that he attempts to answer in this book: “What makes the difference in a human being between acting ethically and not? Specifically, in a soldier, between committing atrocities and holding back?” He realized at that moment that all his philosophy training at Princeton had not helped him answer that question.

Much of his discussion in this book, written half a century later, finds useful guidance by focusing on the psychological influences of behavioral ethics rather than the philosophical musings of Socrates.

I discovered Kirschman through her non-fiction—a book called I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know—when I was working on my first mystery.

Later I discovered she also writes a darned good story herself. Like this one, featuring Dot Meyerhoff, newly hired police psychologist. Dot’s job? Help the police cope better with their stress—those daily dangers, risks, uglinesses.

First client—Ben Gomez, a rookie who just encountered his first corpse. He strikes Dot as a little too sensitive. When Ben becomes a corpse himself, it looks like another cop suicide. Shouldn’t Dot have seen this coming? But she didn’t.

The secondary theme is significant and well handled: the prevalence of police suicide. I learned a lot. Hint: it’s a cozy, not a police procedural.

This book puts the concept of ethics in negotiations front and center. It is a must-read because ethics in negotiation are essential not only for getting to the contract – but how you will address the business decisions long after the parties come to a formal contract. For me, an ethical framework is a crucial foundation for any business and for contracting. In fact, they are so essential our research at the University of Tennessee advocates contracting parties create a Statement of Intent that formally embeds a commitment to six guiding principles that combined, help contracting parties make more ethical decisions. If you ever wondered what is fair in negotiations, pick up this book; or if you scratched your head when you thought something was not fair, pick up this book. Either way, the insights will help you develop better contracts. 

Galen is his own best advocate and his own worst enemy. This volume includes translations of five works, including one discovered only in 2005 and another preserved largely in Arabic. It tells us much of his life in Rome, his book collecting, and his views on education and ethics.

This is not only one of the best books on politics, but on people’s behavior in social media and beyond. Grandstanding, Warmke and Tosi say, is the use of moral language for the purpose of self-promotion.

For example, my neighbors put up political signs that say “No human is illegal” even though those same neighbors (unlike me) in fact advocate closed borders, suppose immigration restrictions, and want to deport illegal immigrants. (In contrast, I actually advocate open borders, though my lawn remains silent about my politics.)

The point of this behavior is like praying in public—it’s about trying to impress other people and convince them you’re a good person. 

Today, people are in a kind of moral arms-race with each other, each trying to prove they’re better than others. This explains why people are dismissive of evidence, tend to have over-the-top, exaggerated emotional reactions, make exaggerated moral complaints, or invent… show more.

Dr. Henry Cloud, a clinical psychologist and Christian, has identified 4 areas of our lives that can really stunt us emotionally if they are out of balance. These 4 areas are bonding; boundaries; perception of good and bad; and emotional maturity. The book brings insight into these areas, which in turn brings healing. I’ve read this book twice about a decade apart, and both times, it changed my life massively for the better.

Taking on an abused dog isn’t for the faint‑hearted, but that’s exactly what Val Poore did. In this memoir, she shares the traumas, joys, and hard‑won love that shaped her relationship with Sin, a deeply damaged soul.

I absolutely adored this book. The lengths Val and her partner went to in their efforts to nurture Sin were nothing short of remarkable. I laughed, I wept, and I fell in love with Sin, too.