In The Geography of Morals, Owen Flanagan seeks to extend an approach to moral philosophy that he began in Varieties of Moral Personality (1991). In that work, which demanded that moral philosophers recognize the ways in which actual human psychology constrains (or at least should constrain) their theorizing, Flanagan worked to advance a conversation between philosophers and psychologists by introducing to the former a wide array of work done by the latter on personality types, conceptions of the self, moral development and social psychology. Such interdisciplinary work allowed Flanagan to push forward a wide range of issues in moral philosophy by calling on material often ignored by philosophers. In the present work, his aim is similar – to demonstrate to philosophers (particularly Anglo-American moral philosophers) the benefits of ‘bringing some of the main recent advances in culturally attuned moral psychology into conversation with cross-cultural or comparative philosophy’ (p. 3).

A vast array of English-language secondary literature has been published in the past forty years demonstrating that a wide variety of non-Western philosophical traditions around the world have long been engaged in investigating questions very similar to those that interest Anglo-American moral philosophers. Additionally, their answers to these questions often differed in important ways from those given in the West, giving rise to the possibility of each learning from the other and thus moving the field of moral philosophy forward. However, few working in the Anglo-American tradition have seemed to care.

Flanagan very clearly and adroitly calls out the parochialism underlying such a position, arguing that,

With this understanding of the overall theme underlying his work in mind, we can turn to a brief introduction of its components.

The Geography of Morals is divided into four parts. Part I, ‘Variations’, includes two chapters that serve as both an introduction to Flanagan's project and an excellent overview of recent work on moral judgement, particularly that from the field of cognitive science. Here, as elsewhere throughout the book, Flanagan's mastery of a wide variety of material from diverse fields, and his ability to digest and integrate it, serving it up to us in a format that allows us to see its relevance to moral philosophy, should be welcomed by all. Even if it had no other virtues, the book's ability to synthesize this material and demonstrate its relevance to moral philosophy would make it worth reading.

In Part II (chapters 3–6), ‘First Nature’, Flanagan turns his discussion to moral character, and in particular to questions of how it arose, how it can be developed, and what we may be able to say about how it should develop. As he says,

These questions Flanagan endeavours to examine by looking in particular at two different versions of what is currently known as moral modularity – the ‘four sprouts’ conception of human nature as espoused by the early Confucian philosopher Mencius (Mengzi) and a contemporary version articulated by Jonathan Haidt.

Part III (chapters 7–10) turns to the question of moral emotions, in particular destructive emotions such as anger. Through a series of four chapters, Flanagan analyses the contemporary WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) take on anger as something that cannot be eliminated given our psychology, should not be eliminated even if it could, as it is appropriate and perhaps morally necessary to acknowledge and overcome injustice, and something that plays an important cathartic role in healing (pp. 180–1). These chapters draw in particular on Buddhist and Stoic conceptions of anger to interrogate such presuppositions and call into question many of the too often unreflected-upon presuppositions underlying the WEIRD position on anger.

Part IV (chapters 11 and 12) turns from the question of the appropriateness of moral emotions to questions of how to conceive the moral self and the development of moral character. The first of these chapters utilizes an explication of a Buddhist conception of the self to investigate whether we should be so complacent in our own (Western) understanding of the self. The final chapter again brings together psychological data and philosophical investigations from a variety of cultures in an attempt to think about how moral character is developed in children.

There is sufficient richness throughout The Geography of Morals such that each chapter could fruitfully be discussed at length, drawing out the ways in which Flanagan has picked up on and articulated positions that force us to rethink our habitual ways of doing moral philosophy in the West. However, in the rest of the space available to me here, I wish to focus on a question that arises from Flanagan's engagement with other philosophical traditions. This question is a variety of the general ‘So what?’ question that philosophers often utilize to justify ignoring or dismissing a position. Why, we could imagine a sceptical reader (who may or may not be parochial in Flanagan's sense) saying, must I engage with these other traditions? Certainly, our sceptical reader could acknowledge, these other traditions developed and justified ways of lives and moral schemes that not only are different from our own, but incommensurably so. Such a reader could even acknowledge that there are interesting (and perhaps even correct) values being espoused by these other traditions and that these other traditions have unique and different ways of weighing and choosing amongst a range of potentially conflicting values, many of which our reader may herself recognize as important. This sceptical reader could also agree with Flanagan that Confucianism ‘is terrific on respect for elders . . . but less strong on freethinking’, while Buddhism ‘excels on compassion, but is weaker on inculcating and theorizing justice’, and even that American liberalism, while strong on individual liberty, is ‘less good on mitigating the role of economic bad luck’ (p. 111).

None of this, however, will necessarily motivate our sceptical reader to engage with these other moral traditions, for she can just say that all that has been demonstrated is that there are a variety of ways of living – indeed, perhaps a variety of incommensurably different ways of living. But this is no different from saying that there are a variety of different professions our sceptical reader could have gone into – and choosing to become a philosopher does not necessitate first investigating all the other possible careers she could have chosen instead.

Additionally, our sceptical reader could argue, Flanagan has provided no decision procedure, no method for evaluating the varieties of moral possibility and deciding amongst them. Therefore, there is no reason to move beyond the particular moral scheme within which our sceptical reader lives, so long as it is (or appears to be) more or less sufficient. This position may further be buttressed by acknowledging that even if our sceptical reader is open minded and recognizes the fact that there are many other ways of life out there that the participants believe are good ways of life, she simply may not recognize in any true way why – neither feeling the force of the way of life herself nor comprehending in a thick sense why others do.

There are, I believe, a variety of responses that could be offered to such a sceptical reader. The first is that Flanagan has demonstrated the extent to which any person's particular home tradition is in a very important sense contingent – contingent upon a variety of social, cultural and historical factors (as well as factors arising from our biology, psychology and reasoning capacities). This does not, of course, mean that it is impossible to defend and justify one's home tradition. However, it does mean that we cannot, simply by investigating, defending and justifying our own tradition (or working to change those aspects we find ourselves incapable of defending and justifying), be assured that we have stumbled upon the best way to live. At most, we will have articulated a justifiable way of living.

If that is all that ethics aspires to, then perhaps Flanagan has not provided a response to the sceptical reader, and perhaps cannot, any more than Gordon Ramsey could provide a response to my uncle's contention that there is no need to move beyond McDonald's Quarter Pounder because it satisfies all the requirements for a burger.

However, we could think that ethics aspires to more than this. It seeks not merely to determine whether a particular way of life is justifiable, but rather to investigate the variety of different ways which people and societies have found to come together and satisfy a complex array of physical, social and psychological needs. The object of such a study need not be to determine the one right way of living. Rather it is to recognize that there are many different forms of life that are available that allow human beings to live fulfilling lives.

Furthermore, such a recognition need not lead to a rampant relativism, even though it does acknowledge that second nature is underdetermined by first nature and that the question ‘what is the best way for second nature to be?’ will always be left unanswered. This underdetermination, however, is neither thoroughgoing nor complete. Rather, second nature is constrained by our first nature. Further, upon investigating the variety of different ways in which first nature has developed into second nature throughout the world in an array of historical periods, we can develop reasons for why some ways of development are good – reasons that can be either impersonal or ecologically specific. By looking at how actual lives have been lived in societies throughout our world, then, we begin to see some of the varieties of moral possibility. If we engage with these views and work to gain an empathetic understanding of them, it will be difficult not to gain an appreciation of other ways of living, regardless of whether or not we would want to choose such ways for ourselves. And, importantly, this would constitute a substantial difference from the state before we underwent this conceptual and emotional process.

Of course, as noted, the sceptical parochialist may well remain unswayed in her beliefs. She may (either stubbornly or with good reason) maintain that there is no necessity to move beyond her own particular way of life and the values internal to its practice. What Flanagan has demonstrated she cannot do, however, is prescribe universally from her blinkered position. At best, she can arrive at a position that is ‘good enough’. Going further, and investigating how humans can more fully realize their potentials, will remain, if not an impossible task, at least one that is severely hampered by an ignorance of the varieties of moral possibility as they have been instantiated by real cultures and real peoples throughout our history.