Moral Cruelty: Ameaning and the Justification of Harm

Hulsey and Frost (both teachers of psychology at Southwest Texas State U.) argue that the tendency to assign the cause of acts of violence to guns, racism, poverty, and other external agents leads us away from asking ourselves if we personally contribute to escalating violence in ways that are difficult to see. In fact, they contend that what individuals perceive as "normal" modes of interaction conceal hidden contributions to cruelty. Their examination of the moral structures that underlie violence in modern life, from the poor treatment of workers to war, is punctuated with b&w photos. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Timothy L. Hulsey is Director of the University Honors Program and Associate Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Hulsey holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Tennessee. He was also a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Dartmouth Medical School.

Christopher J. Frost is Professor of Psychology at Southwest Texas State University. Frost holds a Ph.D. in Psychology and Interdisciplinary Studies from Boston University.