Congratulations
to Steve Yothment for his highly informative presentation "On the Kindness
of Strangers" at the December 26, 2020 meeting of Owl & Ibis - A Confluence of Minds.
A PDF of
Steve's presentation is here and on the O&I website menu bar under "Links to
O&I Slideshows and Docs."
Steve's talk
highlighted the contents of the new book The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New
Moral Code (2020) by psychologist Michael E. McCullough.
The after-presentation discussion was excellent and covered topics as follows, among others:
- Is kindness towards others including strangers instinctive, learned, or a combination of both?
- Various takes and examples concerning the three recurring themes in the book - reciprocity, reputation, and reason - as prime motivators for kind and altruistic behavior toward others.
- Donation recipient entitlement.
- The problem of corruption in nations receiving international assistance from other countries; and organizations mentioned by John Hendershot such as Charity Navigator and Give Well that monitor assistance uses and abuses.
- Doug Nichols recommended the related book Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help Others, Do Work That Matters, and Make Smarter Choices About Giving Back (2015) by William MacAskill.
Here is something I recently wrote on nature-nurture,
a matter raised in the early chapters of The Kindness of Strangers.
Well done, Steve! Thank you!
