BOOK REVIEW: Human Goodness

Yi-Fu Tuan is known for his ability to make big issues accessible, a skill that has served him well. The author of more than two dozen books on philosophical and metaphysical subjects, Tuan is also the much-honored J. K. Wright and Vilas Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Focusing on the nature and meaning of human goodness, Tuan examines the lives of people who were considered to have been “good” people by those who knew them well. In short biographies of gifted and complex people such as Confucius, Mozart, Albert Schweitzer, and Simone Weil, Tuan shows that in spite of differences in time, place, profession, and culture, all “good” people share identifiable traits, including the ability to go against a “customary good” for a higher purpose, even in the face of death. By naming the traits associated with goodness, Tuan gives us the tools to call them forth in ourselves and live in such a way that we, too, will be remembered as having been “good.”